


The Thoughts of Hollow Men

by beanfield



Series: The Thoughts of Hollow Men [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Also kind of, Ambiguous Relationships, And then God said "Let there be metaphors", Angst, Cause of death is probably Death by Figurative Language, F/M, Gen, Implied Torture, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, Lots of implied relationships or unrequited feels, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Slash, Prolixity pretentiousness and psuedo-intellectualism oh my!, Psychotropic Drugs, Sally redeems herself, Violence, angst everywhere, gratuitous literary references, if you want something like that i would suggest not reading this, it will not be happy nor will it end very happily, kind of, let's make something clear; this is angst, there is nothing heart-warming or happy about this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 06:31:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 74,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/475581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanfield/pseuds/beanfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two bodies on the ground, and Sherlock was once-dead but now isn't, and he can't think anything but johnjohnjohnfindjohnsavejohn but John is not here, even though his name is on the lease, and this is his flat, and his fianceé is on the ground with a snapped neck, and Lestrade looks so very, very tired, and Mycroft is so stoic and unflappable, and Sherlock Holmes is falling apart at the seams.</p><p> </p><p>  <strong> EDIT: It appears that some are misjudging what, exactly, "angst" means. This is not heart-warming. This is not happy. This is based off of T.S. Eliot's very-not-happy-actually-rather-bleak poem, "The Hollow Men". If you are looking for something happy and heart-warming, something that makes you leave feeling warm and good inside, this is not what you should read and I don't know what I can do for you here. </strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Between the emotion and the response

**Author's Note:**

> First fic. I have no idea how to format. The idea came to me whilst I was trying to study for my AP Literature test, so if you find the gratuitous literary (and biblical) references scattered throughout the story, you get a cookie or something. I know Reichenbach's been done before, but I wanted to have something related to T.S. Eliot because I was analyzing the poem at the time. I have no idea how to give beta credit either.  
> I wrote this almost like an epic poem, kind of like The Odyssey. Also, I have a tendency to be prolix with my words, so it might come off a bit pretentious, too poetic, phony, I don't know. Deal with it, Holden Caulfield. Some people are phonies.  
> Warning: I have a tendency to swear, so the notes will probably have some rude language. Honey badger don't care. Honey badger don't give a shit. Honey badger just takes what it wants!  
> I don't own anything, not even my own soul. My ginger friend took that one on a recent visit from Hell.

**_“There are no eyes here in this valley of dying stars, in this hollow valley, this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms.”_ **

**_-T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”_ **

 

The first thing he notices was not the two bodies on the floor, nor the pool of blood under the first and the lack thereof under the second, nor was it the blood slowly congealing on the sofa, with high—no, _medium_ -velocity spatter speckling the northern wall and the white-painted, crown-moulded ceiling. It was not the fact that the telly was still on, suggesting a surprise visit (clearly), or the lingering smell of gunpowder. It was not the broken bolt on the door and the chain hanging limply and uselessly from the wall, or the knocked-over chairs and broken plates.

The first thing he noticed had been so achingly commonplace. It had been a chair in the kitchen with a striped jumper (still wet from the rain outside; he’d just come home from work, then, preparing for a night in) hanging abandoned over the side, next to a quickly cooling mug of tea—the one he had favored so often. The cane sat solidly off to the side, a solemn testament to a life now renounced and the consequences of that abandonment. This jumper’s owner was missing (obviously). His body was not lying on the soft, now-stained carpet or crumpled near the doorframe with his body punctured with two small-caliber (nine millimeter hollowpoints) bullets from a British Army Browning L9A1.

When they enter the flat, the supposedly deceased Sherlock Holmes is sitting in the chair holding the jumper, staring at the now-cooled tea as though he expects it to prophesize John’s whereabouts. His hands are sweating ( _not shaking_ ) and his eyes are wide, but, for the most part, he retains that familiar placid aura of cool indifference that he had once taken with him to every case; it is unconvincing by all standards but it is strangely comforting to see him in the attempt. He does not have that overwhelming flurry of energy previously so characteristic. He is not a human hurricane, blowing through the scene without leaving a mark, picking up every clue and every _miniscule_ detail as he tore and left his chaos behind him. He is stagnant. He is stationary. He is not the same.

It had been Lestrade who had been on duty at the time, with 999 calls of a domestic disturbance, gunshots, and shouting and a kicked-in door and _oh god I can see a body blood there’s blood there oh God oh God someone is dead oh God I live next to them such nice folks oh God please come quickly I hear shouts they’re outside my door oh God oh God they’re fighting and now it’s quiet I think they’re leaving but—where did they go and now now_ now _I hear nothing_. Normally, Lestrade is not called in until much later, until the first responders had shown up and assessed the damage, until it is too late. But Lestrade heard the address and dropped everything. It is not 221B Baker Street, of course. It couldn’t have been. That flat remains empty and hollow, as does the man sitting before him. This is not 221B. This is 6C Weighhouse Street, a place of brick and domesticity that has not been scarred by bombs or gunshots or spray-painted smiley faces, and has no repossessed body parts lurking in corners and refrigerators or illicit drugs tucked away underneath floorboards. This is a place John never would have afforded had it not been for Mycroft’s efforts at penance. In his uncomfortable attempts to atone, Mycroft Holmes has bought John Watson normality, or at least, the illusion of normality. It was the least he could do for the man he helped destroy.

But John Watson is a soldier and was from humble roots, proud ones, in fact. He would not accept handouts of any kind, but Mycroft’s unique, quiet, almost uncompromising insistence had worn him down indirectly. When money began appearing anonymously in his bank account, John had confronted him only once, but then said nothing of it.

This is the new battlefield for Doctor Watson. And here lies the collateral, the casualties of a war that is not his. Here lie the fallen innocents, hallowed be thy grave.

 _oh God they’re fighting and now it’s quiet I think they’re leaving—but where did they go and now I hear nothing_. “Nothing” weighs heavily on the thin man sitting in the kitchen of a flat that is not his.

Lestrade had not known that Sherlock Holmes survived his apparent death, but yet, here he sits, holding John’s jumper, in John’s flat, in front of John’s tea, with John’s (girlfriend? No, there’s a ring, but not a wedding ring) fiancée. But this is not Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes would not sit catatonically when there was such fun to be had, when _the_ _game is on!_ The bodies! Look at the bodies! They are begging to be investigated, to be poked and prodded and deduced without any regard to decency or sentimentality or privacy.

Lestrade has no words, so Sally Donovan says them for him.

“Freak!” She whispers with a hiss, born more from shock than from enmity. She felt guilty, as she has a right to, because, by then, they all knew what fools they had been to question, even for a second, Sherlock Holmes’ veracity. To her, Freak is a sort of soubriquet that has lost its viciousness, now more a reminder to her than anyone else: _You are the one who planted the seed, Sally Donovan. You believed the lies. You took his life. You are the one who killed the Freak; you have become the Freak._

Sally Donovan begins to cry in spite of herself. She is angry and confused and upset and heartbroken and suffering from a plethora of other emotions that _she_ does not understand, much less does the man sitting before her, who, for so long, has been so disconnected from his emotions that they no longer register fully. This is not a psychopath or a sociopath—high-functioning or otherwise—but a man in a child-like state of shock; in spite of his maddening intellect, he cannot comprehend, because for _Christ’s sake_ , his best friend is missing and there is blood in his apartment without a body.

Lestrade brushes past her, stepping gingerly over the blood and bodies to go to Sherlock, who makes no sign of recognition that he is present.

“You.” He says, because there is nothing else that comes to mind. His mind screams _you’re alive! You didn’t die! We did not kill you!_ But his mouth only can form one monosyllabic word. He reaches out to put one hand on the broken man’s shoulder (hesitantly, worrying about how Sherlock would react to touch—no response), and crouches down so he can look into his eyes. There it is. Hiding, there, _there_ , behind veiled eyes, is something darker and larger than them all, and infinitely more worrying. There is the panic, the hurricane. There is the genius trying desperately to understand.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Lestrade is repeating, uselessly, more as a reassurance to himself than to Sherlock or anyone else. Sally is still quietly crying, a totem in the middle of a dead room, and uniformed officers are now coordinating forensic investigators and medical examiners, and Anderson is lurking outside the door, not sure what to do or how to feel, and Lestrade is still there in front of Sherlock. Now Dimmock, who should have had the case in the first place had Lestrade not swooped in first, is running up to the flat, bursting through the door.

“It’s okay. We’ll find him.” He does not ask what was going on in his mind, _How did you survive? Why did you wait this long? Where have you been?_ He just repeats his futile mantra: _It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay._

Lestrade does not look around the flat and investigate, but instead continues to kneel in front of Sherlock. His left elbow rests on the younger man’s knee, and he keeps the hand over his own face to protect himself—no, this is about shame, not about protection. Lestrade is ashamed; he is guilty. (Sherlock could never understand why Lestrade shows up to crime scenes with such an expression of contrition. Why he hangs over a body of a child, of an innocent victim, with his sorrow seeping out of every pore and filling the room. He’d sometimes ask himself, watching silently from a distance, _Why?_ _He’s not the one who killed them. It’s not his fault. He just showed up too late, that’s all.)_

Sherlock does not think that now. He can’t think of anything, and that terrifies him more than when his mind is racing out of control and only drugs or John can slow him down, keep him safe (from the Gatling gunfire of his own brain).

The bodies are male and female. The male is tall and burly, as it was to be expected, and John had shot him with the illegal gun that everyone at the Yard carefully ignored, but knew of. The female body is that of Mary Morstan, primary school teacher of no defining attributes (intelligence is adequate, pretty without being overly so, kind and altogether forgettable), a woman Sherlock Holmes had hated without ever having met her, but now one he finds pathetic and that fact leaves a guilty pit in his stomach, (because John would not want his best friend to consider his fiancée to be pathetic at all). The exact play-out of events is unclear. Dimmock tries walking through the scene, narrating and predictably fails to muddle through unaided.

“She’s watching telly and _he_ is drinking tea in the kitchen, maybe making her some too, and then the door blasts open and she screams, maybe, and he grabs the gun—he shoots this man and then…and then what? Why did he stop shooting? She tries to run and then maybe, maybe…” His voice trails off, looking at Sherlock and Lestrade in desperation (he needs help, of course, he’s out of his depth), as though the consulting detective has not been dead for almost three years, and they are back at a normal case before a leap from a hospital roof had shattered their blissfully macabre illusion of ordinariness. Just like from the lost days, there should be an accustomed ease to this case; it is not John’s blood in not-John’s flat and it is not John’s body missing and Sherlock Holmes is alive as he’d always been. Sherlock would fix the flustered detectives’ problems; he would identify mistakes and he would understand. He would make the puzzle pieces slide gracefully together in a way no one else could.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade says gently. “Please, Sherlock, we need your help. We need you. _He_ needs you. Please.”

And with that, Sherlock’s head picks up, like a dog at the call of his name. He stands and looks around, whirls around like a familiar hurricane and spits out observations like a fusillade, his internal minefield of a mind ripping his reality to tiny pieces of observation and truth in seconds.

“They were both in the living room when the intrusion occurred—he sees the door slam open and stands up. The tea is lukewarm now, it would have been hot then, but he always takes his tea with cream, and there’s no cream in this tea, so he was surprised midway through preparation. He would always keep the gun in his room, next to his bed; the door is near the kitchen. He runs up and gets the gun, shoots the man, but by that time, the second intruder has got the girl, threatens to kill her, so he drops the gun—he’s a soldier and a doctor, he can’t let an innocent civilian die when he has the chance to save her. So he drops the gun—but there’s no blood under her body, why is there no blood? Broken neck, with the cervical vertebrae snapped both to the left—the killer was left-handed—and upwards, so a military man judging by the training, possibly paramilitary. She was killed quickly and cleanly; these were obviously professionals—just look at the man there, _look at his hands_. No fingerprints, someone has burned them away or cut them away, I suppose. His fingers are calloused, clearly a fighter acclimatized to violence and death; perhaps he enjoys it, even. He’s been in the profession at least 15 years, by the look of his hands and the scars around his face. And they took the guns, all of them, even his, so they are illegal weapons, but they can still be identified—they’ve been used in previous hits. He had surrendered his gun in the hopes that it would protect her, but of course, it didn’t; killing her was a bonus. Psychopath, then, at least, her killer is one. She became superfluous, but this was also about cruelty—not to her, but to him because it was so quick and preventable. The spatter can’t be from either of the victims here, so it must be a third…these were inflicted by something blunt, something heavy. Medium-velocity spatter, a bat or a hammer, something painful and slow. Animalistic and controllable, not like a ricocheting bullet, but still something that has force, something _primal_. Psychopath again, probably the same man who killed the girl was the aggressor. It would cause a lot of damage, naturally. The victim would likely be—”

He cuts himself off, making connections, forming those horrible, horrible ideas in his head. They are theories, nothing more; the data can’t conclusively give him anything at all but the thought itself is sickening enough. That _is_ his blood on the ceiling and with spatter like that; the wounds would have been near-deadly. _But they are professionals!_ They would know how to give off that much blood without killing, yes, but would they, whywould they, why, why, _why_? Why would they bother keeping him alive? Or, if not, why would they bother taking a body at all? Why couldn’t they just leave him there so at least they could bury him?

He knows the answer without having to say it. They took his body so Sherlock Holmes would be alone, of course. Like always, like he had been as a child (friendless), as a university student (loveless), as a young addict wandering the streets (hopeless), as the somewhat-rehabilitated consulting detective ( _only one in the world)_ , and, after that day, as a man on a mission without a home. Because Sherlock Holmes had always been alone, until John Watson came along and became his one friend, the only one he could trust and count on, the only one who was loyal to him without ulterior motives. Because Sherlock Holmes had left John alone, and with no one to protect John, gentle, caring, steadfast John, he had to protect himself and shut himself off. Because they both knew that they’d always find their ways back to each other, and Sherlock knows that they took John, _his_ John ( _the only one in the world)_ , alive or dead, so they are even farther apart, and possibly would be forever, and now Sherlock will continue to drift for the rest of his life without his anchor.

Lestrade does not say anything. Lestrade knows, he always knew, from the moment they got the 999 call, that John is gone. But even so, with a lump in his throat burning him and his stomach clenching, he still asks, “The victim would be _what_ , Sherlock?”

“Dead.” Mycroft Holmes, the epitome of cold-hearted stoicism, says from the doorway, and that breaks Sherlock; he panics. It is horrifying to see, and heartbreaking, to watch a man as collected as Sherlock collapsing within on himself. He is becoming a black hole in the vacuum of space that is ( _was?_ , he thinks bitterly) John and Mary’s flat, a giant, burning, dying star, with his gravity sucking in nebulae and asteroids and all that surrounded him. And so he stands, hanging over Mary’s body like a bird of prey, and in one fluid movement, Sherlock Holmes crumbles.

Sherlock would not remember the agonizing humiliation of trembling, previously so proud and indifferent, at the crime scene of 6C Weighhouse Street. He would not remember Lestrade stepping near, reaching his hand out tentatively (perhaps to ascertain whether or not Sherlock was physically _falling apart_ , like a ruined building, or perhaps to reassure himself once again that this is real and happening). He would not remember losing consciousness because breathing is boring, it’s just transport and _oh God John might not be breathing he could be bleeding out somewhere and he needs me and I can’t help him where’s John where’s John where’s John he could be dead or dying or hurting where is he where has he gone I have to find him he needs me he needs me_ , and maybe he can’t breathe at all, his body won’t let him, so he passes out in his brain’s last-ditch effort to save himself from collapsing under the weight of the _emotion_ and the _incapability and nothingness_.


	2. Between the potency and the existence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see the casualties of war, John shows up (what a lazy bastard), we meet Seb who is just playing a part like everybody else in this goddamn world, someone suffers blindness and discovers ammonia has unpleasant side effects, and the italics are back with flair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So because this is my first fic ever, I've been having issues with formatting. I can't tell if I'm just inept or I am actually having technological issues but because of my ego I'd like to say it's the technology's problem, not mine. Did I format this right?
> 
> I am actually the technologically impaired duck, guys. 
> 
> I switch POV often in the later chapters, but for now, this is solely John's POV.
> 
> I still own (and regret) nothing.

**_“When a good man is hurt, all who would be called good must suffer with him.”_ **

**_—Euripedes, Greek playwright_ **

 

With Sherlock Holmes, John Watson had seen the battlefield. When Sherlock Holmes died, the battle was over. Even when a battle ends, the war does not. The war has continued for John Watson, just as it always has, just as it had after he was invalided from Afghanistan, just as it had when Harry’s drinking got out of hand, just as it had when their father had left them and their mother alone, just as it had done when illness had taken his mother’s body fat and healthy cells and most of the hair from her head.

This war had taken a toll on him, but not one that could be calculated easily with taxpayer’s money or snappy statistics and death tolls. It manifests itself in limps and solemn graveyard visits and Dr. Watson’s general avoidance of the Baker Street Tube station and a navy blue scarf that sits in a shoebox untouched and still slightly smelling of chemicals and blood in the bedroom closet.

When he had walked with Sherlock, he had learned to observe, maybe not with the baffling, stunning ingenuity that the genius possessed, but nonetheless, he saw the finer details. Tiny microcosms of the world around him bubbled up without regard to decency. He saw things previously overlooked—perhaps that man owns two ginger cats, that woman is out on a second or third date but dislikes her potential suitor now, so it won’t last past today. But then.

But then, in a whirling of coat and a smattering of blood upon rainy pavement, his impromptu schooling had ended abruptly. Schooling. That makes it sound so inhuman, when it is anything but, as though it is the “science of deduction” that John misses most.

 _Because I was so alone, and I owe you so much_.

And so he became a body once more, no more “John, I need your phone” or “John, hand me that” or “go talk to the wife and find out whatever you can, John”. He was no longer necessary. He again was superfluous. He was one out of millions, more broken than the whole. And Mary had been so calming, so comforting and understanding and lovely. Mary Morstan, who brought with her the antithesis of what Sherlock had been. She had been just another body, just like him, floating with aimless determination while rushing headlong into sad, lonely uncertainty. She made few demands, and ate and slept and made perfect sense. She sat with John as he struggled to explain his burdens, closed her eyes and held his hand, spoke softly and comforted him after he woke with a start in the middle of the night, and never asked for more than he could give her and was someone, _something_ to rely on and go home to and hold and care for. She made him necessary again, cane and all.

And again, Dr. John Watson has failed to safeguard human life. A doctor incapable of saving lives is not worthy of his Hippocratic oath. A soldier incapable of protecting the homeland and her civilians is not worthy of his brass or uniform (especially not worthy of an honourable discharge, and _especially_ not a medal for valour). He had let Mary Morstan die in the same cruel and slow and devious way that he had let Sherlock Holmes die, by loving them and killing them simultaneously.

 

The first thing John Watson notices is that he notices nothing.

And then it is the smell of ammonia, mould and crusted blood. His own blood, if the searing pain all over his body is to be trusted, stiff along the side of his reeling head and down his left side. His head had been hanging down, and the blood had formed slick riverbeds down his face in haphazard cobweb (head wounds _do_ bleed a lot, after all). He opens his eyes, but feels burning instead, so he shuts them and tries to blink out the poison that is cutting him (because poison cuts just the same as a blade or a scalpel or a bullet through flesh; it’s just internal and feels like fire) There’s something covering them; it feels rough like sandpaper but doesn’t have the consistency. He tries to reach up to tear away the blindfold but his hands cut against cold chain. He lowers his head to his hands, instead, and painfully tears away the rough gauze, keeping his eyes closed. He hears a tinny ringing as he does so, with sharp stings accompanying it. Something small and metallic has fallen to the floor, and his doctor’s instincts tell him that it was probably a staple that had been fastening the blindfold to his head, but instead of considering the reality that someone had stapled a stinking rag (the smell—it must have been soaked in ammonia) over his eyes to some end or another, he begins cataloguing himself, because what else can he do?

And there it is. The pain, jutting out from every cell in his body, screaming at him; his mind blanches with how overwhelming it is and yet, he _knows_ that he is not dying. Because if he were dying, he would be dead.

Breathe, he tells himself. First a doctor, then a soldier. The pain is most evident around his ribs, broken, probably, judging by his shallow, croaky breathing. Lungs bruised, perhaps. His shoulder is sprained at the very least, and his left wrist feels broken, though it is hard to tell in his barely awake state. His face is swollen, and he knows his lip is definitely split, and the blood has left an iron taste at the back of his throat. His legs are bruised, nothing there broken yet. His head aches and he has a concussion or worse, and there is a stinging gash across the left side of his head, reaching all the way back to the nape of his neck from when they had struck him with the wooden baton. His face is bruised from the beating and his shoulders ached from kicking with steel-toed shoes.

He is not wearing shoes, he notes. How odd that he should consider that to be important, but then again, with Sherlock, he has learned that even the smallest iota of detail could be the most invaluable. He had not been wearing shoes, just stockings, in the flat when they—

 _When they broke in and God Mary she’s what have I done I couldn’t save her they just came in and they had her and oh God oh fuck oh Jesus Christ Mary’s dead they killed her where am I they took me and why didn’t they kill me why didn’t they just fucking kill me they killed her like exterminated a rat or maybe like a pathetic runt of a lamb they slaughtered her and I’ve just killed a man too and she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead_.

The panic sets over him and he twists and pulls against the chains. He writhes and grunts and tries to pull, much to the dismay of his broken body. With all the force of the younger man who had invaded Afghanistan, he tries, _for the love of God_ , he _tries_ , but to no avail. Because Mary was already dead, so what’s the point of struggling if there’s nothing to go back to? And he remembers her scream, and then her pitiful cry and then the sound of her neck snapping cleanly, quickly and professionally, because like him, she was unnecessary, and then the soft, almost peaceful _thwump!_ as she fell into the carpet. His military instincts had kicked in, and he had bolted into the bedroom and grabbing the familiar gun from the bedside drawer as soon as he heard the bolt break, but by the time he had shot the second intruder near the door, it had been too late; they killed her even when he gave up his gun. In the stunned seconds immediately following Mary’s death, the third intruder, very much alive, had batted him down with some sort of baton. Like he was some sort of rioter on the London streets, looting and burning and fighting, and he was garbage to be kicked about and he was nothing. He had tried to fight back, but the men were trained, and much, much better at fighting than what John’s mediocre bull-ring-and-pub-brawl experience had prepared him for.

They knocked him to the ground, but they knew that John was still fighting, so the lead fighter swung the baton until it carried blood up onto the ceiling—part of that was from a gash on his head, most of it was from his nose and a nasty wound between his sixth and seventh ribs on the right side. And it was not his blood that disturbed him the most, but the fact that there was lovely, mothering Mary, dead and growing cold, with eyes wide open, without any blood at all. Blood was comprehensible. Blood made sense and could be cleaned up and reintroduced to the body, but she was without it. If only her eyes had been closed, then she could have been sleeping from the angle he was looking at her, and if he could _only_ reach out to touch her, he could wake her. They were both on the floor, and John had curled himself into a tiny ball to protect his internal organs, to no avail, and did not yet reach out for her.

Then there was the pinprick, the puncture of a hypodermic needle in his neck. The world became heavy and his vision tunnelled in and he, in his quickly fading stupor, extended his hand to touch Mary (wake her? Comfort her, maybe, because he was a doctor and he hated to see people look so alone). And then the boot came down on his hand and wrist, and the cracks of his bones—

And then, in his recollections and careful cataloguing, John realises something sickening. In spite of his hasty removal of the bandage, John cannot see anything at all.

The panic sets over him again, but not the same kind of agitated, mobile panic. This one manifests itself internally, punctuated by sharp, staccato heartbeats and achingly hollow breaths. Nothing. Nothing at all. The burning is still there, but fading quickly, and there’s no improvement in his vision. He feels nauseous and empty; he dry-heaves and fails to expel any of the fear from his body, he screams inwardly and his body is on fire, and he is quietly breaking apart at the seams.

The fear constricts him, and he sits with his insides twisting and turning for God knows how long. No one has come for him. He almost hopes no one would, because right now, at least he could make sense of his solitude. Perhaps no one knows he is conscious. Perhaps no one cares.

 _Well_ , he thinks to himself, more desperate than acrimonious, _someone cares enough to keep me chained here_.

He spends the next hours in limbo, going through lists of everyone he had wronged, who would have means and motive to commit this sort of crime. No one he knows had a substantial amount of money to pay for a ransom. Scotland Yard would not negotiate with terrorists (kidnapping a soldier is considered terrorism, right?). Mycroft has no further obligation to protect John. He is now a simple doctor, of great importance to absolutely no one. Moriarty flashes in his head, but Moriarty was dead and gone. John no longer matters, now that Sherlock was gone, anyway. What use is a pet without its owner? There’s no use having a hostage if there is no one to pay ransom at all and the pitiful git doesn’t know anything; that was what he learned in the Army. Hostage takers always have something they want. There’s no use kidnapping unless there’s an endgame, otherwise it’s just too much effort and you might as well kill the sorry bastard.

What use is John to anyone at all?

He hears footsteps from down the corridor that is presumably just out the door, which creaked open heavily. Someone steps into the dank room, closes the door, but does not exactly enter. He (or she, he supposes, but men are the ones who have been cruellest to him in the past) lingers, waiting or watching or simply breathing in the sight of the army doctor now sitting solidly in the corner, looking nowhere in particular.

John picks up the smell of cigarettes and alcohol, sweat, blood and maybe those last two are of himself, but the tobacco smoke is what assaults him first. He must still be smoking. He could have chuckled to himself, _243 different kinds of tobacco ash, Sherlock. I still don’t see how I could use that to my benefit now_. But instead of continued classification of his surroundings or struggling against steel, John Watson becomes a stone.

He would not ( _could not_ ) think of Sherlock Holmes now, because Sherlock Holmes had been locked away the day John stood at his grave and begged for a miracle he knew would not come. Sherlock Holmes is locked away in a dark room in the back of John’s mind, where all of his nightmares go, from Afghanistan or the day his father left or everything that had ever scared John. That room is only opened in the deepest parts of the night, when those ghosts would haunt him in the throes of sleep and wrench him away from his solitary tranquillity and he always knew he would lose to them, no matter how hard he fought.

Sometimes, that room would open in the daylight, when John sees a tall, thin figure in a dark coat or see a man with eyes too much like John’s own _(sad, lonely and perhaps the tiniest bit detached from reality)_ because that man was missing an integral part of himself too. The nightmares slip out even when the sun is out, and the worst is when you had a nightmare in the middle of the day because it _just feels so goddamn real in sunlight._ No, he will not let these men, whoever had taken him for whatever reason, let him live that nightmare while he is awake.

“So. Here we are.” The voice that presumably belongs to the smoker breaks him from his reverie. There is nothing particularly singular about the voice; nothing in his careful study of Sherlock’s methods had called on him now to pick up on anything at all. But he studied it anyway, with four words. It belongs to a man (not very old, definitely English, wholly commonplace), is harsh and unflinchingly indifferent to his situation, so probably a professional. More data needs to be collected, but John Watson doesn’t _do_ data, he _does_ action, and he is bound and without that capability, so instead, he waits.

“I see. You’re going to be like that, then. I don’t have much to talk to you ‘bout anyway, but we’re both grown-ups here. The way I see it, we have a very particular situation. There’s me, and well, there’s you. And we both need something from each other. You need to live and I need you to suffer. So let’s work something out, yeah?”

John says nothing. The man’s vowels are drawn-out and posh, _public school man, then_ , but the syntax suggests a man long removed from that world of money and manners. Eton vowels and teatime with mummy and daddy no longer appeal or apply to him, so he is an outcast, then. If he has orchestrated this kidnapping, he had to be organised and trained. Perhaps ex-military.

“I hate you Queen-and-country folks, always so quiet,” he pauses and takes a drag, but then adds thoughtfully to his idea. “Though that’s probably a bit hypocritical, coming from me.” He stops, and then strikes at the ground with something hard and fast, probably some sort of whip or crop based off the snappy sound it makes when the tip collides with the concrete. “Go on! Say something, you fucking twat!”

Definitely not someone who wants to be back at countryside dinner parties, then.

John has a healthy sense of self-preservation, and his pride has all but been decimated by years of belittlement (from superior siblings, superior officers or superior flatmates), so he decides to respond in the interest of safety.

“So who are you, then? The local dogcatcher?” Perhaps his pride hasn’t completely fled from him. For his trouble, he does get a fair smack in the jaw with the crop. The scourge has drawn blood, not much, but enough to bring back the iron taste to the front of John’s mouth from its rest in the back of his throat.

“John Watson, then, that’s you? Papers make you seem smaller. Though, suppose that Sherlock Holmes was a bit gangly; it only makes sense that he made you look like some sort of bloody dwarf. Huh. John Watson, right?”

“I think you know very well who I am.”

“Yeah, that’s true. I don’t much like games either, then, now that we’re settled and acquainted—”

“We’re not acquainted.”

 _Smack_. “Do _not_ interrupt me when I’m talking, you goddamn son of a bitch!”

“We’re not acquainted,” John repeats, with more emphasis but also a bit more reserve. “You know me, but I know nothing about you. How can we be friends when we don’t know that much?”

The man laughs this time, with a lighter smack to the shoulderblade this time. He is enjoying himself, relaxing. _I suppose this is the best I can hope for_ , John thinks.

“Who said anything about being friends?” The man pulls up a chair that must have been in the room. He sits in the chair, leans back, putting his foot on John’s bad shoulder as a prop. He rocks back and forth on the back legs of the chair, using the riding crop lightly to tap out a beat on the top of John’s head. “Nah, I don’t want to be friends with you. Why would I want that? But you are right about one thing, Johnny—can I call you Johnny? You’re right about one thing; I _do_ know you. And let’s just say I’m interested.”

John practically spits out laughing at that point, maybe from desperation. Imminent death has a tendency to bring out a dark sense of humour from a person, particularly those from the military. “ _Interested_? In me? Why? Nothing happens to me.”

“Dunno. Look at you, all compact and travel-sized, with your good intentions. Though it’s not really my choice, is it? I just do what the man with the money tells me to do.”

“So you’re a hired gun. Like a cheap whore with bullets.”

“S’pose.” John can practically hear him grinning, hearing his shoulders shrug with half-hearted jocularity. “I kind of like that. Cheap whore with bullets. Huh. Tell you what, Johnny-boy, I like you.” He takes another long drag on his cigarette, blowing the smoke into his face. “So why don’t we take our time? Get to know each other a bit better? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Whore’s beginning to sound like a better and better description by the minute.”

The man puts out his cigarette on John’s neck. Right near the jugular. He cries out and bucks into the wall, which makes the man’s chair fall forward, back the way it is supposed to be used, and the man simply laughs. A good, throaty chuckle, and _God_ , John wishes he could see the expression; at least he would know that he is being laughed at and who is laughing at him. His skin burns and crawls, like the ash is spreading through his veins and turning him to dust. It itches and spreads about, even though he knows it’s irrational and just his exhausted (and probably concussed) mind playing tricks on him.

“Burns, doesn’t it? But a good kind of burn. The one that you know you deserve. So you enjoy that, Johnny Watson.” He picks up the chair again, and throws it behind him. The clatter makes John flinch, and he’s sure that the man notices. “How’re your eyes, Doctor? Doing okay? Must be weird, to be a doctor who can’t see, can’t see your patients, can’t help ‘em at all. Don’t worry. We were careful. Ammonia en’t something you fuck with, after all. That shite can cause _permanent_ damage. And we wouldn’t want you to go blind forever, would we? Christ, no. Not when there’s so much fun to be had. Blind doctor, ha. Who ever heard of a blind doctor?”

The man flicks ash into John’s face. It is silent, and then he can feel the man’s hand delicately graze the scarred bullet wound from the military, tracing the lines of blood that has dripped from the doctor’s nose and mouth when he was unconscious. The man’s hands are light and soft, almost comforting and at once, terrifying. The fingertips leave John’s body and he hears the man stand up and turn, as though he is about to walk away, but then a boot-covered foot kicks his head upward and slams him back into the concrete wall behind him, followed by the return of the damned crop. The beating continues for hours, but what are really only minutes. John counts his breaths, careful and measured to distract him from the pain, and when he can no longer breathe evenly, he begins thinking of anything he could. Good or bad. He thinks about his father, and sister’s alcoholism and his childhood pets and about Mary and the Army and something, _something_ to fill the void before it could be filled with pain.

_Jesus Christ steady on, man, steady on. Soon this will be over this too will pass this isn’t so bad and you invaded Afghanistan! That wasn’t just me though; and someone will find me goddammit Lestrade or the Yard or Donovan even goddamn Donovan can find me or even Mycroft I can’t die I have to go back to Mary (Mary is dead you daft fucker, she’s been dead for a while and it’s all because of you, you saw her die, you killed her and this man was probably the one who snapped her neck) I have to bury her I have to take care of her because I couldn’t protect her but I can grieve and mourn like I mourned for—_

So this would be his life, he thinks to himself as he sat brokenly, cuffed to the pipe in a dank cell in God-knows-where. This will be his life until he dies, and he is not important. Doctor John Watson is the least important, most unassumingly average person there is. There was a time when he might have been interesting or fascinating, a time where he was beautiful (to someone, just for a moment), but that time took a plunge off a hospital rooftop and any hope he’d had for something similarly beautiful ( _no, not beautiful—pleasant? Satisfactory? Kind?_ ) now sits in a mortuary with a snapped neck. But for some reason, in spite of his futility, he commands his mind to repeat that one thought:

_You will survive this; you are a soldier. Soon this too shall pass. It will be over._

Over and over again in his mind, like an angry bee trapped in the car on a hot day, but he will _not_ let it escape, because if it escapes, he will be broken irreversibly. He cannot be broken again. Because once you break something too many times, it’s gone for good, and he doesn’t know how to be useless.

 _But what do you have to go back to?_ He tries to squelch those thoughts too, as best he can, but they nag him and wear him away, eroding him. _Why do you even bother? It would be easier to check out._ This is not a new idea at all, one that had been layover from his discharge because what’s the point of a doctor who can’t practice surgery because of shaking hands or a soldier who can’t walk? _What is the point of you?_ He has asked himself that once, twice, a thousand times, and there had always been a questionably suitable answer, but right now, nothing comes to mind, and he hates himself for that. Despite it, he is competitive by nature, and to admit defeat is to _be_ defeated, and he will not surrender.

Bravery really _is_ the kindest word for stupidity, the doctor thinks to himself with a grimace as he continues to catalogue each of his injuries to try to keep the nightmares at bay, but he knows the locks are breaking down slowly and the doors won’t hold them back for long.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try to have it all finished and posted before August 20th, which is the day I leave to go move in for university. At least, for the main story, that is. Additional work will happen...eventually.  
> Trying to keep everything in character, but that's hard when you don't actually have a character for one of them (ahem Sebastian Moran). So the first time we see him, I have him playing a part, and eventually we'll get a more introspective view into his character, but not now, because of reasons.  
> (Also I'd like to thank my three off-on betas, Sophie (my Martha Hudson), Jasmarne (my Mycroft Holmes) and Liz (my Sebastian Moran who I pay to be my friend because I am lonely) (not really)
> 
> I'm an omni-shipper, so feel free to slash and ship as much as you'd like, especially with the more minor characters.
> 
> Thank you for leaving kudos and the bookmark on the first part, and please feel free to review/comment/whatever! I will respond with all my customary wit and grace. Remember, as Calming Manatee/Nat King Cole/Eden Ahbez/David Bowie in Moulin Rouge!/Various Other Cover Artists said, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." And I love you so. Mwah! (Except you. You know who you are.)
> 
> Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do when your 92-year-old grandpa wants to friend you on Facebook because I love my Papa but I really don't want to be Facebook friends with him that would be a terrible terrible idea between my liberal ideals and my penchant for swearing and my ridiculous friends' posts on my wall  
> help
> 
> Edit: I'm putting Grandpa on limited profile on Facebook so he can only see pictures of me making ridiculous faces. 
> 
> Edit edit: I accidentally put Sophie down for beta credit. Turns out, I should have actually given her stripper credit. Sorry, Sophs. I'll get it next time (*suggestive eyebrow waggle*)
> 
> Edit edit edit on August 20: Hey guess what. It's 11:47 p.m. right now and _I'm not getting this shit done today_ brb guise moving to college hope I don't get shot in LA because I hear that can really ruin Welcome Week


	3. Between the creation and the conception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lestrade shares his views on public displays of emotion, Mary and Molly once shared an awkward Italian lunch, Jim pays a visit for a bit, corpses make for lovely companions, everyone has some sort of personal addiction, trees argue even though they are most definitely not supposed to, and Molly has a no good, very bad day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Okay. First order of business: pie wins out over cake. Your argument can't even be invalid. There is no argument. Case closed. 
> 
> Second order of business: Trigger warnings for this part. Take the (serious) tags with consideration. Here there be monsters. The violence in this part is graphic, but not as graphic as it probably could be (believe me, I know these triggers; a few years ago they became rather personal). But please, if you have a problem with violence of a sexual nature especially, references to possible non-con situations, then please, please _please_ proceed with caution. Also, TW for more gratuitous use of italics. 
> 
> This is your friendly neighborhood Authorlady giving you some helpful advice. 
> 
> Third order of business: I own my laptop and also both DVDs of Sherlock, and a couple (i.e. all of the) books of ACD's Sherlock Holmes canon, but that's about it. Definitely don't own the characters nor the interpretation given by the show. If I could, I'd like to own Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones, which deserve a fanfic all on their own, if they haven't already gotten several.

**_“Don’t forget that I cannot see myself. That my role is limited to being the one who looks in the mirror.” —Jaques Rigaut, French poet_ **

 

Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade does not have time for tears, no matter how much he wants to be able to crack. He does not have time for his own exhaustion, and he especially does not have time for the questioning whispers outside his blinded windows in his office in New Scotland Yard. There is a man missing, possibly dead, whose fiancée now was dead on Molly Hooper’s cold slab down at St. Bart’s. A dead man now sits in his office with an air of unhesitant complacency, very much alive, with a balled up orange blanket in his hands, twisted within an inch of its life.

The time for tears has passed him by. He has always found the idea that men should refrain from crying to be ridiculous; grief is universal. The presence of a single Y-chromosome should not and _does_ not dictate how a human being handles tragedy or how a person grieves. But he does think it’s something to be done in private, regardless of sex, after the day’s work is over and what needs to be completed is done. And right now, there is not a busier man than DI Lestrade.

“Why aren’t you out there?” Sherlock finally asks, _finally, finally_ , because Lestrade does not want to be the one to have the first word.

“We’re doing everything we can.” Lestrade is uncomfortable and sighs and then yawns, his entire body’s foundation reverberating with exhaustion.

“That’s not enough. I see your incompetence has not lessened over the past two years, ten months, three weeks, six days and eighteen hours. I cannot say that I am the least bit surprised.”

Lestrade says nothing, just wearily rubs his eyes with fingers that ache for a cigarette. Everyone is an addict in his or her own way. Sherlock’s drug of choice was a cocktail of cocaine and violent death, laced with a smug sense of superiority and anything that dashed away his uniquely intense boredom, even for a short, euphoric high before he crashed, and perhaps he had an addiction to John Watson’s personal brand of heroin, the one of compassion and bizarre understanding that made them mesh so well together. Lestrade has his nicotine, feigned normality and casual fuck-ups (he hasn't been a married man since before the divorce, practically since before the honeymoon was over). And John had adrenaline, danger and empathy, all lethal in excessive amounts, but so soothing in moderation. Dr. Watson had been in a steady withdrawal from all of his chosen addictions for the past _two years, ten months, three weeks, six days and eighteen hours_. Now he is overdosing from them.

 “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find him. It’ll be okay.” He falls back on his miserable, clichéd old tune because he doesn’t know what else to say ( _there isn’t anything, really, to say, because what_ do _you say to a man back from the dead, especially one you were so certain you had killed?_ ).

“You keep saying that; why do you keep saying that? You can’t know that at all. You have no proof. For God’s sake, he could be dead already, but _no_ , you make assumptions that all is well and dandy, don’t you? You only see what you’d like so desperately to believe, because God forbid anything be wrong in this pristine little land. You, the mighty king, and your little subjects here at the Yard; it is _not_ bloody okay! It will _never_ be okay; it won’t be until he’s back, because then it can go back to normal and it will mean that everything happened for a reason. But you keep saying that! Stop saying that! Why, _why_?” He is sneering, but his agitated panic, harkening back to the scene at Weighhouse Street, is seeping into his words once more. “That was always you, wasn’t it, Lestrade? Galloping in to save the day like some archetypal hero, _really_ , must you be so obvious? No wonder your marriage failed; your wife couldn’t stand the idea of someone so stupidly dull and trite either, and she blames you for everything because you can hardly handle the precious few things you are responsible for, and God knows why anyone would choose to place anything in _your_  so obviously capable hands. Sometimes I’m amazed you’ve managed to tie your shoes without my help, much less solve any cases at all—”

 “Sherlock.” Just a word, laced with a sad affection, one unused and carried in silence. Sherlock has not heard his name said in such a way in a long time, a very, very long time, and it is comforting because it meant that, in spite of the vitriolic, poisonous words spewing unabashedly from the detective’s mouth, Lestrade isn't angry, just tired and worried. So he stops, mostly from surprise (not an easy feat to surprise a genius, you know).

Lestrade has sat patiently, listening to the detective’s words. This is a version of Sherlock that he hasn’t seen in a long time. This is the coked-up young man before rehab, coming down off a particularly bad high. This is Sherlock in his own withdrawal. He is addicted to John, and has been trying to detoxify for the past three years and could not kick the habit. And now someone has stolen his drug of choice and Sherlock is the desperate junkie looking for a small fix to ease the pain and carry him over.

The words are cruel, but they lack bite. They have all the poise and grace of a small child pretending to be an adult at his parents’ dinner parties—words born from attempts to impress and outrage, but never to cut, only to sting. They have the look, all trussed up for _presentation_ , but don't quite make it believable.

“Where have you been, Sherlock?” There it goes, the question that has been sitting on the back of his tongue for what seems like ages, but really must be only a couple hours at most. “What have you done?” Lestrade sounds like an upset mother questioning her disobedient child after he comes home past curfew after hours of worrying alone in the night. Lord knows Lestrade has been there before with Sherlock, and is none-too-pleased to be returning—no, that’s not true, because he is mad, that much is obvious, but also, he really is pleased in a terrible way.

He remains silent for a while and stares at the floor. His hands have stopped wringing the shock blanket and instead simply hold it.

“He’s gone; I’ve lost him,” He whispers now.

“Where have you been?” Lestrade repeats, pressing him, burning. There can be no tears now. No, God, no tears. From either of them. They can’t. They’re British. They have to maintain that stiff upper lip.

“I had to do it, to die. To protect them.”

“From Moriarty.”

“Yes. That was the game and I lost it.”

“He died too. I’d call that losing.” Sherlock simply chuckles mirthlessly and shakes his head. It takes Lestrade a second to realize what the man opposite him has just said. “ _Them_? Protect who? John?”

“Them. John. Mrs Hudson.” He presses his lips into a thin line. “You.”

“Why me?”

“Three snipers. Three bullets. Three victims. That was the trade-off. My life or the three of yours. Numerically and statistically speaking, I made the better bet.”

“So you jumped off the roof of St. Bart’s to save my life from James Moriarty?”

“Yes, please try to keep up, Lestrade. You know I hate repeating myself.”

“So why aren’t you dead?”

“Would you rather I were?”

“No. Jesus, don’t say that.”

“Then what does it matter how I survived?” He waves his hand as though he’s physically waving the question away from his mind. “Details are irrelevant. All that matters is the case at hand, and the case at hand is finding John.” _Dead or alive_ , he doesn’t add. _Because where John goes, I will follow. That’s what we do. We follow each other. And we always wait when the other goes too far ahead._

“You’ll have to tell someone eventually. You’re here now. We know you’re not dead. If you won’t tell us now, you’ll have to explain yourself eventually.”

“You think so?” Sherlock shakes his head. “And are you going to be the one to try to make me?”

“If I have to.” Lestrade expects one of Sherlock’s endless snappy responses to that; he prepares himself for what was sure to be a curt and snippy remark demeaning his intelligence or something of the like. It does not come. Instead, Sherlock seems to fold himself into the chair, perching on it and tenting his fingers underneath his chin in cold, calculating thought. It is then that Lestrade realizes how pale and thin he is, even more so than usual (it makes sense; there was no longer a caring doctor to look after him day in and day out). “When was your last hit, Sherlock?” His voice is pregnant with audible concern, and that only served to irritate the detective further.

“Please. I’ve been clean for months.” Sherlock waves off the question flippantly. “Don’t be boring.”

“You had been clean for years before.”

“Yes, well, situations required differently of me. You, of all people, should understand taking a personal fall for the job.” This is accompanied not with another flippant hand-wave, but with a sneer.

Lestrade had weathered a blow to his reputation for his work with Sherlock, and even a personal strike on his professional record, in order to save his badge. It had not been ideal, but this job is all he has. He no longer wears a band around his left ring finger, and has no close family to speak of, just some filled graves and bills from his divorce proceedings. At his age, it would be nearly impossible to find another job (not that he wants to do anything else, as taxing as his current one may be). That was Lestrade’s own private suicide. In a matter of a few dozen feet and a few hours, Gregory Lestrade had gone from esteemed DI to the fall-man for a fraudulent genius. He supposes some could have considered him lucky; he had not been considered an accomplice or even a person of interest during the posthumous investigation into Sherlock’s involvement in crimes. Sherlock had been absolved of all charges; death settles all debts, after all, but even then, it became perfectly clear that there _had_ , indeed, been a James Moriarty and that he was real and very much at the heart of the criminal web that Sherlock had described. Perhaps it was Mycroft Holmes' attempts at atonement, when the anonymous tip had led to a cornucopia of information regarding the international mastermind that cleared both their names. But Lestrade does not feel lucky at all.

This is not Sherlock Holmes, Lestrade decides as he watches the man staring back at him. This is a cruel shade of what he had been. Yes, his wit is biting, his tongue is wickedly smart and he exudes all the cool, intelligent confidence he had three years ago, but it is a ruse. It is a poor facsimile of a dead man walking, a familiar one that he remembers from his own reflection years before. Lestrade can see straight through the façade and is having none of it. There is a life at stake. He cannot have Sherlock Holmes pretending at a time like this.

 “Was this Moriarty’s doing? Did one of Moriarty’s old employees do this?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it. The plan always was to burn the heart of me.”

“So why now? Why John?”

“I haven’t exactly been idle this whole time. I was working. The work keeps my mind sharp. The drugs were a distraction for a bit, but I needed to keep focusing on the task at hand, and the task at hand had always been the same, regardless of the status of my death certificate: take down Moriarty’s empire. Empires are not built pyramids at a time. They’re built by stones. I chipped away at the stones; now there is only the very skeletal foundation left, and the foundation never goes down without some resistance.” He does not answer the part about John. That much is obvious, or it should have been, Sherlock thought. Lestrade had hoped to hear it from the man’s mouth, and his hopes have once again failed him.

“If you would release some of your information to us, then we could help more efficiently. Work with me, Sherlock. There needs to be a line of communication, because we can’t do it on our own, for Christ’s sake. This is for John. This isn’t for you. You need to share—”

“Yes, well, that’s not likely to happen any time soon, Detective Inspector Lestrade. Sherlock never was good at sharing what he thought was his.” Ah. Mycroft Holmes has finally arrived to whisk his brother away. It isn’t like him to be tardy.            

“Mr Holmes, I am afraid I’m not finished speaking with your brother,” Lestrade replies calmly. He has no patience for the man, powerful or not. Instead, Holmes just takes out his small red notebook and glances at it.

“Mm, yes, you _are_ , I think. Because right now, you’ll be having quite a bit of explaining to do with the Chief Superintendent, and you _really_ can’t afford to burn any more bridges with your superiors, can you?” His lips press into a thin line, his face kept carefully blank but still suspiciously smug at Lestrade’s lack of response. “Yes, I thought as much. Well, we’ll be in touch. Ta, Detective Inspector. I’m sure we’ll see each other quite soon. Come along, Sherlock.”

“I’m not going. I am busy, Mycroft.”

“Sherlock, we do not have time for this. I do not need to remind you what is at stake right now. We are on the verge of a breakthrough; I do not need your _feelings_ getting in the way of the work we have done.”

“ _I_ have done. And no. I want to go to St. Bart’s.”

“For God’s sake, Sherlock, stop being so childish. What could possibly be at Bart’s?”

“His fiancée.” Sherlock had cautiously avoided both their names during the observational tirade at the flat, Lestrade notes now. “Her body is there. It may be…useful.”

“I need to go there anyway. Come on, then.” Lestrade stands, attempting to find a way to make a break for it. The posh man, radiating complacency, puts his umbrella out across the doorframe, blocking his planned escape. “Move the brolly, Mr. Holmes; though I don’t _particularly_ care what you do with your brother, I have an abducted army doctor I would really like to find, preferably alive. Now you can stand there and I can arrest you for obstruction of justice—no doubt you’d be off that charge in a half an hour at most, but you’d be in custody for at least a little while—or you can cooperate and let me pass.”

At that moment, Donovan appears in the doorway, and Lestrade has never been more grateful for his sergeant. He had been upset with her for a long time after the Incident (though it truly is not her fault, in spite of her repeated apologies and the burden she carries every time she crosses his line of sight), but they have reached a mutual agreement to never bring it up. While Sherlock’s resurrection is creating tension between them, they are still both Yarders, and all good coppers have an uncanny, innate ability to recognize when a convenient out is necessary.

“Sir. Your presence is requested immediately. Shall I escort Mr Holmes out, then?” She asks him, carefully eying the elder Holmes, with whom she is on less-than-friendly terms. She had undergone more than one “interviews” post-Incident with the blank-faced bureaucrat; he had blamed her for instigating suspicion, she blamed him for not protecting his little brother like a big sibling is supposed to (like she had done for her little sisters—the very _thought_ of being unable to protect them shakes her to the bone. She would die before letting harm come to them, and yet Mycroft Holmes, in all his infinite wisdom and unspoken power, had let an obviously dangerous man like James Moriarty worm his way so integrally into the system that he could utterly destroy Sherlock.)

Lestrade seems pained and closed his eyes, simply nodding. Mycroft, carefully categorizing the expression, that strange mixture of tragedy and dashed optimism and utter confusion, weighs his options. He _could_ concede this small battle and return to his search for John (for Sherlock’s sake, naturally), from the shadows. He _could_ remain in this office as a roadblock to the Yard’s own search, where he could watch Sherlock and protect him.

Neither of these options wins out, in the end, because Sherlock Holmes gets a phone call from one Doctor Hooper, but when he picks up, there is no voice on the other end.

 

~oOo~

 

Molly Ann Hooper and Mary Elizabeth Morstan had been friends, she supposes, as the former opens the long drawer marked “ _Morstan, M.E., homicide”_ in the cavernous mortuary. Yes. Friends. They hardly had been together alone, of course, almost always in the company of John and at least a few other assorted acquaintances. Molly had held her own awkward Christmas party earlier that year, and both had attended, neither particularly enjoyed it. Mary too had been infected with the particular kind of sadness that illuminated the former Baker Street resident during the holidays, even though she had never known the source personally. She had been somewhat of an outsider to the small gatherings, often of Molly, John, Lestrade (well, Greg, now. First name basis for mutual friends of the deceased.) Mary had not known Sherlock, so the shared, somewhat maudlin stories passed between them over pints and pub peanuts had been alien to her. Nonetheless, Molly believes that she enjoyed hearing about the detective, if only because he was important to John, and John was important to her (she then thinks with a lurch of her stomach about how much she hates the word “was”). Then, there was the one late night that Mary had suddenly asked Molly to a Sunday lunch, _“just the two of us girls,”_ she had said. And Molly had felt a pit knotting its way through her middle because _Oh hell, she wants to talk about John, I bet, because I knew him before she did, and I’m absolute rubbish at relationship talks and my extensive history in that department will surely make listening to her enthuse about John exhausting but he’s been grieving and I’m tired of being friendless and feeling like I’m lying every second of my life so I’ll go even though I probably will hate it._

They met not far from Molly’s apartment, a small diamond in a somewhat-seedy rough of London. It was an odd mix between an Italian restaurant and a traditional English pub, but they had an outdoor back patio that overlooked a tiny park, which was a massive upgrade to the commercial street view on the opposite end of the café. The area is home to quite a few churches, and Sunday mass or prayer or _whatever_ (Molly has never been particularly religious, which certainly made her profession go over somewhat more smoothly with both herself and her family) had not let out by the time they were seated. The sense of privacy was unnerving, Molly had thought.

But Mary was not a young lady gushing about her relationship with her beloved beau that day. She had never been that woman, even when she was a young girl in love for the first time when she'd been a schoolgirl, and she certainly wasn't going to start now. She was calm and restrained; a teacher has to have extraordinary patience and limitless self-discipline, something that Molly herself does not possess (this was obvious by her initial primary-school crush on Sherlock Holmes, which was immediately visible, extremely overwhelming and undeniably embarrassing).

Mary just wanted to hear about Sherlock Holmes.

_“Molly, the reason I asked you here, well...I mean…you knew him, didn’t you?”_

_Knew who?”_ She asked this, and they both feel quite stupid, because she knew whom Mary is referring to, and Mary knew that Molly knew too.

_"_ _Sherlock Holmes. You knew him."_

_"_ _Fancied myself in love with him, for a while.”_ She laughed to try to dispel some of the tension. It did not work. Molly, by then, has become extremely adept at self-deprecating humor. Had been ever since she chose to pursue a field working with the dead instead of her parents’ preferred pediatrics.

Thankfully, Mary laughed too. It’s pleasant, not mocking, just the mutual bond between two woman who have been through unrequited, unilateral heartbreak before.

_"_ _Yes, John might have mentioned that once or twice, too. We’ve all been there before. For me, it was Henry Butler in sixth-form. Good God, that is humiliating to think about how I flounced about trying to catch his eye.”_

Molly turned an uncomfortable shade of pink at this, recalling hasty lipstick applications between autopsies or her more-than-awkward attempt to ask Sherlock on a coffee date, which he misinterpreted—well, no, he does not misinterpret. He always understands everything, and he said those things to be particularly cruel that day. That was the day Sherlock and John met, wasn’t it? Typical of her not to remember something so important to everyone around her. No, don’t think of that. Don’t make yourself sad, Molly, it’s neither the time nor the place, even though you know the truth.

_"_ _Yes, well, anyway, I just wanted to know him from someone other than John’s point of view. To me, it seems like John worshipped the ground the man walked on. But…what was he like for you? Or Greg? Or anyone else?”_

_S_ he could lie, she supposed. She could say, “yes, of course, he was amazing. Polite and intelligent, a gentleman, what more could one ask for?” But she didn’t say that.

 _"If you want the truth, he was a right twat most of the time.”_ She felt somewhat satisfied with that answer, which quickly faded to bitterness again. _“But he was our twat_. _”_ The two women looked at each other, allowing the other party to realize the unintentional innuendo, and then began giggling like schoolgirls. _“God, I’m so stupid sometimes. I can’t believe the words that come out of my mouth. Ignore me. Or not. I don’t mind. I feel dumb. Anyway. Yes, Sherlock was so intelligent that he didn’t know how to be good to people. But despite what people say, I think he had a heart. He knew what love was and he knew the signs, but for a man so smart, he was stunningly stupid when it came to himself. He knew how to love people. I think he loved Mrs Hudson, and John, and maybe even Lestrade—Greg, I mean.”_ And maybe even me, she didn’t add, because she had always questioned whether or not she actually counted, or if he only said that because for once in his life, he needed help from someone other than Mycroft or John but didn’t know how to ask.

But Mary didn’t skip a beat, or even hesitate. _“What about you?”_

_“What about me?”_

_“Did he love you, do you think?”_

_“I don’t count.”_

_“He saw everything, did he?”_

_“Yes, of course, and never once did he neglect to tell you exactly what he saw. Hence, a twat.”_

_“So of course he saw you.”_

And there they were. Tiny pinpricks, bursting in little white lights behind Molly’s eyes. They were familiar, but she hadn’t cried in a long time. Not really. She went through the motions of crying, but she never felt it, not like this. This was a woman she hardly knew, telling her that she _mattered_ then, and she matters now, enough for her to be needed.

 

That woman is now dead. A woman who had sipped a small glass of red wine elegantly while managing to enjoy a sub-par pasta dish and overlooking children succumb to the perils of gravity. She had something that Molly has never had and wishes she did. She had probably sat just the same way in the restaurants that John had taken her to, maybe a little fancier or a little less casual. He probably proposed to her in some fancy restaurant that took up two months’ pay from the surgery, and the little diamond ring still sat on her long, thin fingers (they still had marker smudges from that day’s teaching). He probably told her things like “I love you” and “I need you” and “you mean everything to me” and “you’ve always counted” and _meant_ them. He did not use her.

Questions burn at the back of Molly’s throat as she pulls open the drawer. She pulls back the sheets and picks up the chart detailing the evidence that has already been removed from the woman’s now-exposed body. Even in death, she retains that calmness. She had been well-suited to her career in education: she had the comforting face of a mother, the stern mind of a scholar, the guiding hands of a helpful friend.

Cause of death (broken neck, nearly instantaneous, mostly painless—some small comfort) was a simple enough inference. Postmortem bruising has already formed around the throat. One hand had rested on her jugular to keep her briefly incapacitated. Palm-mark bruise with four fingers circling to the back of the neck where he had held the neck in place. Left-handed assailant. The other hand had reached across her throat and gripped her just underneath her right ear and _snap!_ COD: _cervical dislocation_ ( _atlas, vertebra C1)_ , she writes with a steady hand. She consciously tells herself to ignore the personal details about the victim, for sake of her impartiality. This file does not have Mary Morstan’s name and confidential information written in angry, unforgiving, uncomforting and unfamiliar black handwriting at the top of the page. This is another patient ( _why do you call them patients, Molly?_   _They're not being treated by you; they'll never get better_ , her family had asked once), one with whom she has never had lunch or spoken or known.

She begins to examine parts of the body as a critic might a painting, taking note of the different colors and textures and specks and spots and anything she can find. It truly is the most intimate of professions, she thinks grimly, for she sees people at their most vulnerable. What is more vulnerable than a corpse?

She continues to go through the motions. She labels and places in Petri dishes and cuts and cracks and removes and categorizes. She remains in silence the entire time. It’s a lovely thing to be able to think, normally, but her thoughts are overwhelming at the moment. So many questions she had not answered for Mary, and so many questions that she had not asked. Did she know about the Christmas party when Sherlock kissed her cheek and acted like it would make everything he said go away? Did John tell her about Irene Adler and how she seemed to break Sherlock’s heart? Did he tell her about Jim Moriarty pretending to be Molly’s boyfriend for three dates to get close to Sherlock, _using_ her, just like every other man she’d ever known? Did she know anything about John’s life before her, or Afghanistan, or on-foot car chases or getting arrested for punching the chief superintendent of Scotland Yard or the incident at the pool or whatever happened in Dartmoor or recognizing a body by not-her-face or anything that could only be deduced by a misdiagnosed “high-functioning sociopath”? Did he _trust_ her in a way that no man had ever _trusted_ Molly? Did he trust her to make him better after all the damage Sherlock had done?

The questions do not distinguish or prioritize themselves between trivial and important. In death, there are no priorities, only regrets. And if she had ever had a second “girls-only” lunch date with Ms Morstan, would she have asked any of them? No, she wouldn’t have, making the hypothetical lunch yet another missed opportunity jetting off into a parallel universe.

In her reverie, she does not notice an impeccably-dressed, pale-faced, excruciatingly familiar young man stalk into her midnight mortuary. When she turns to strip off her gloves and her bloodied apron, she opens her mouth to scream; he clamps his hand over her mouth and nose and for a moment, she thinks he will kill her—what an unpleasant way to die, asphyxiation (petechial hemorrhaging, bruising, blood in the throat caused from the pressure, her skin flushed slightly with that distinctive, faint cherry-red colour of oxygen-deficient blood). She becomes light-headed, falls to the ground, and he holds her up, even though her apron gets blood on his immaculate suit. It’s dark, but stains will still show up, especially when they dry. Will he get them dry-cleaned out? If he does, will his dry-cleaners ask questions? Does he pay them to stay quiet and look the other way? Or will this suit get tossed aside and thrown out, or maybe burned, like everything else in his life? _This should not concern you—fuck his suit, for all you care, Molly Hooper. You hate this man. He killed everything you love, and made you save it and he doesn’t even know or care. Does he?_

“Hey, there, there, Milly-Molly,” he coos, stroking her hair with the hand supporting around her shoulders. His hand has released some of the pressure, but not enough to allow her to breathe normally and regain all her function. She shudders in spite of her lethargy. “Yes, there’s a good girl.” He slumps down, leaning against the cold metal slab and cradling her in his arms like a doll, which is most definitely how he views her in his mind. He releases the pressure and she gasps for air and struggles some, but he now has his hand on her throat.

He continues to praise her like a dog, softly, comfortingly, but she rejects it and continues to struggle. He slaps her and recollects her. She whimpers, but now is still.

“Now, Molly, that’s better, isn’t it? I promise I won’t suffocate you if you don’t struggle. This won’t hurt a bit.” He giggles— _Christ this man is completely insane isn’t he dead Sherlock_ said  _I thought Moriarty was gone he’s back and he’s going to kill me oh God_. “Well, maybe it will, _a bit_. I lie sometimes. Or often.”

She sees the needle poke into her skin before she feels it. Her brain is reacting slowly to stimuli due to still-low oxygen levels, she notes, because, contrary to her colleagues’ beliefs, she _is_ a competent doctor, although her patients never seem to fully recover from the state in which they enter her care. The drug, whatever it is, appears to be a depressant, but slow acting. She’s not immediately out. It seeps through her veins, reminding her of a margarita in her blood _(how bizarre, is that the drugs talking? No, you’ve always had a particularly strange, macabre sense of humour, but you usually repress it. That’s just you. Maybe that’s why the dominant male presence in your life is a cat.)_

The sound of her own sobbing alarms her, infuriates her, because now her body is betraying her as she is trying to be brave. She tries to speak, but her words don’t quite form themselves on her tongue and come out in a strange blend of garbled sounds. He hushes her, gently placing two fingers on her lips. She wants to bite them, cause him pain in anyway she can, but instead, she focuses on his face.

“Shush, shush, Milly-Molly, let me do the speaking. Women always talk too much. There’s a girl, yes.” He sighs glumly, putting on airs of pity. “Poor, sad Molly, desperate for attention. But not just _any_ attention, oh no. ‘Look at me, Sherlock!  Don’t you see me? Aren’t I pretty enough? Aren’t I smart enough?’” _Falsettos are unbecoming in psychopaths_ , Molly thinks. More words that don’t quite reach audible levels. “Shush. Shush, it’s okay.” She tries to speak again, so he slaps her again (just a feedback loop), and recomposes himself—at least, he does so visibly, with undertones of rage seeping through his gritted teeth and betrayed by dark, manic, wild eyes. No more gentlemanly tones. Hysteria. “Do not interrupt me!” He roars this time and she cries out again.

And again, another change, he hushes her, stroking her hair and rocking her gently. His left hand lies just above her throat still as an unspoken threat, while his right is uncomfortably placed on her breast, and he does this all on purpose, and she forces herself to hate the both of them, both herself and this man, to stave off the effects of the drugs. She thinks of all the things he could do that might be worse than death, and then realizes he would do all of that and more with psychotic alacrity, and probably has done all of it to kind, gentle, loyal John Watson because _of course it was Jim Moriarty who took John_ , _because_ _he has nothing to lose, and why not? It was something to do; psychopaths get bored._ She hates herself for not thinking about it, never even once entertaining the idea that Jim is still alive. If Sherlock Holmes could fake his own death, then Jim Moriarty could easily do the same. Perhaps even more easily, though the bar for “easy” is admittedly quite high (there had been nothing even remotely “easy” about making the world believe Sherlock was dead).

“You’ve been busy, haven’t you, Molly-girl? You’ve a secret, a big, bad, terrible secret and you’ve been keeping it all this time like a good girl, because that’s what you are, isn’t it? You’re just a good girl. And it’s a pity that Sherlock Holmes had to involve you in all this. Pathetic Molly Hooper and her dream of being loved would do anything for Sherlock Holmes, even kill him—but you didn’t kill him, did you? You just played a trick on me, on everyone, even poor John Watson, and you broke his heart. Just like you broke my heart.” He laughs (giggles), like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Three dates and you dumped me, darling, so I can’t say it was quite heartbreak. No, I used you, Dr Hooper, but you’re used to that. People always use you, maybe for a nice cup of coffee, maybe to kill pesky detectives.

“But you were naughty to do that, Molly. And I’m very angry. I don’t think you’ve ever seen me angry before, have you? No, of course not, because I was only ever not-gay Jim from I.T. for you. That was fun, wasn’t it? Preparation for acting the part of Richard Brook, I suppose. Oh-oh, what are you trying to say, love? I can’t quite hear you. Speak up, darling.”

She has looked up at the ring on Mary Morstan’s pasty, wan hand hanging limply off the slab. She is still sitting open; Molly has not yet sewn her up in that elegant y-shape, no, she is still exposed and that sickens Molly even more than the thought of what an angry Jim Moriarty might do to her, drugged or otherwise.

 “J-J…John…where…?” Not a sentence, but _honestly, Hooper, keep your priorities in order_.

He pats her face in mock-affection. “Oh, sweetie, don’t you worry about John. I wouldn’t leave him all alone! He’s being taken care of by my best man. Besides me, of course. I came personally for you. He doesn’t even realize I’m alive yet!” He claps his hands in glee, not supporting her body, and Molly slumps to the ground. He straddles her, knees on both sides and hands around her head. He takes off the bloodied apron and throws the it to the side, leaving an inelegant smear on the floor. There’s a bit of (Mary’s) blood on his hands; he uses it to trace a line from her right eye down her face, across the top of her lip and down her throat, stopping just above the third button on her blouse. Her bra is exposed now, not completely, but she still feels utterly bare, like the bodies on her slab. Her gloves remain on limp hands that do nothing to help her fight back and she curses herself for being so useless, having such a low tolerance to drugs, for believing that Moriarty was dead, for helping Sherlock (no, maybe not for that).

“I need you to help me, darling, for old time’s sake. Ah-ah, no, hush, don’t you say a word, you don’t have to decide now. Just stay still and be quiet while you think it over. I let you decide. But don’t take too long, hm? I’m a very busy man, and my colleague hates to be kept waiting. He’s got such a temper and he can be so _violent_ ; it really isn’t very glamorous at all. Daddy has to work a bit, but you can keep mum for a moment, can’t you, sweetie?”

He stands, stares at her for a while like she’s a cockroach, because she probably is, in his eyes. She is a means to an end, whatever that end might be. His back is turned now and he’s over by Mary’s body, admiring Molly’s handiwork with sick joy, if she had to hazard a guess. She’s going to be brave and strong, for once, and not let herself be trampled. She won’t let him win. She’s tired of breaking down and being the one used, and despite the paralytic drug in her system, she reaches to her phone in her pocket and brings it to her face, dropping it several times on her bared clavicle. He does not turn around, but every time it makes the slightest _click!_ or its screen lights up, she stops breathing. She scrolls past the list of unhelpful contacts and clicks the name “Sigerson, Normund” because that’s who Sherlock is now. He’s just some Norwegian who has never had to die to take down a criminal organization, just a traveling professor with no home, no country and no one to die for him. She presses the call button, and the ringing will surely get to Moriarty; he’s so close, and he does turn around, but he’s not angry.

“There, you finally got around to it. It certainly took you long enough, didn’t it, Molly?” He puts down the scalpel and crouches down beside her. He picks up the phone from her hand and slaps her once in the face with his bare palm, for good measure, she supposed. Or not. Maybe because she was there and it, like everything else, was something to _do_. “That was for interfering in a game you had no place in and understood nothing about.” He slaps her backhanded this time, and steps on her shoulder, leaving traces of blood on her white blouse. “And this was for disobeying. You’re very aggravating, you know, babe. I can see why we didn’t work out. You just don’t know your place—always wanting this or that, you know how it is. So _pathetic!_ That’s really what you are. Pathetic. Pitiful. God, how I hate mice like you. You’re just so irritating.” He kicks her without much force, but it will still bruise. He kneels next to her with his knee on her left forearm. “Now, go on, say hello.”

He reaches down and holds the phone near her and then laughs when he sees her trying to reach up to grab it from him, but it’s useless; her shaking hand buckles midway.

 Sherlock picks up the phone on the other end. “Molly, if anything, your timing is moderately helpful, but I hope this is important.”

She cannot respond, but manages to sob a bit, and it sounds somewhat like his name, and maybe the word “help”, but that might just be an unintelligible whimper.

“What’s wrong? Where are you?” He doesn’t sound concerned per se, just vaguely interested, almost excited. She has to remind herself to be upset with him later. He is barking out orders now—so it _is_ true that Lestrade and the others knew of his continued survival. He turns back to the phone now, speaking to her, trying to get her to respond, but the drug has not yet reached its full potential yet. The effects are mounting. In a moment of silence between the consulting detective, the captive coroner and the silent third party, Jim begins to sing. _Sing_ , of all things, as he slices into Mary Morstan’s body, with the ribs and internal organs exposed.

“Kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree, very merry king of the bush is he, _stop!_ Kookaburra, _stop!_ Kookaburra, gay your life must be.” He repeats the verse, over and over again (no one knows the rest of that song, anyway), bouncing slightly on his heels as blood gets on his hands. He isn’t wearing gloves, _how unprofessional_ , she thought, ever the stickler for protocol (except for that one time when she helped the man she thought she loved fake his death, but then again, Sherlock always seems to be the exception to _everyone’s_ rules, so why not hers?)

He takes the bloodied scalpel with him as he approaches Molly, now the floor is slick with a dead woman’s blood. He forces his expensive, Italian shoes to squeak with it, he drops the scalpel with a neat gesture, just to get Sherlock’s attention. Sherlock, on the other end, trapped by screens and plastic and tower signals, has been shouting for sometime now, just to get Moriarty’s to _listen_ , get distracted, but it is silent as soon as he hears the clanging sound of the scalpel hitting the mortuary floor, and Molly blanches because _no one_ can make Sherlock shut up once he begins to speak. She cannot scream. She tries to, but whether it is for fear or for sedative, no sound comes out; instead, it boils and burns in her throat and she forces it back down, with bile and disgust. He laughs again at the attempt, and recollects the blade. He picks up the phone, which had been lying next to her _(on speaker, of course, because Moriarty likes to hear what’s going on at all times)_. He grins into the receiver.

“Hello, sexy. It’s been a while. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me, but then you started taking down my web, and you got my attention again, didn’t you? Though that _would_ suggest you ever lost it. Oh God, Sherlock, dear, this is too easy. It’s almost sad, in a way, how stunningly _simple_ this all is. I’ll admit, I was the just a bit happy that you didn’t die that day, because then the game would be over for both of us and I really _would_ have to blow my brains out because of boredom. You keep things interesting, Sherlock, my dear, but _this_.” He begins shouting now. “You think you can keep me entertained with _this_? This is nothing! This is breakfast for me! And you think you’re so clever with your aliases and homeless army and your little play-missions from Big Brother. Without me, you are nothing.” He’s switching between hissing ( _a snake_ ) and howling ( _a wolf_ ) into the phone, and Molly is holding her breath in the vain hope that he’s forgotten about little, quiet, unimportant her already. Moriarty is manic again, a state she actually prefers to his calmer demeanour. He is impulsive and unpredictable in his mania, but it is silence she feared, because that means he is bored, and when he is bored, he is far more lethal.

“So why don’t you stick around, we can have a chat?” She has missed the tail-end of Moriarty’s rant and only caught Sherlock’s snappish retort. Battlefield banter, of course, he _has_ to play the nonchalant Hollywood antihero facing down his nemesis. Molly hates archetypes at that moment, because that means she’s the damsel in distress, and she’d rather not be, even if it is a mostly accurate description. So what does that make John? _I suppose he’s also the trapped princess—I don’t think he’d appreciate that characterization—and I’m just the extra girl in case it doesn’t quite work out._

_Those girls sometimes die and no one cares, no one even fucking cares so long as the prince and the princess live happily ever after. I’m just the fallback girl; I’m just surplus._

“No, no, I couldn’t do that. Far too busy with John, you see. He’s so well-trained, your pet. But he’s so stupid. He doesn’t even realize I’m alive yet. I have to say, it’s quite entertaining playing with his mind like that. I think I’ll keep acting the part. But you don’t have to know about that yet, do you?” He sighs, his mania subsiding. “I _do_ hate to miss you, darling. We’ll meet up soon, I’m sure, but I’ll have to let you go for now. I’ll leave you a present with sweet Doctor Hooper, okay, babe? Just to let you know I’m thinking of you. Because I’m _always_ thinking of you, sweetie; you’re _always_ on my mind.” He angles the scalpel to Molly’s chest now, dragging it along her collarbone absentmindedly, as though she were paper and it was a pen and this was just some average, boring conversation. His doodles are etched in her pale marble skin, and he is no master sculptor, but he could be in just a moment. “I’m bored of talking now, dear. I think I’ll hang up and have some fun in the ten minutes it will take you to get from Scotland Yard to St. Bart’s. There must be _something_ interesting to do around here, and I have such a lovely lady to keep me company. Though maybe something a little more interesting, maybe a little more exciting, a little more _physical_ , than _Glee_ for our fourth date, wouldn’t you say, Molly?”

He puts down something next to him, a gun that she did not know he had on him, but it makes sense that he would have one—it’s the perfect metaphor for Jim Moriarty, really. All fire and lead and unpredictability and loud noise and lethality. And then he’s taken off her shirt completely and her heart is pounding blood in her ears, and her brain is screaming, _run away, you stupid cunt, he’s going to kill you!_ but her legs can’t move because of drugs and fear and his bony knees in his bespoke suit are digging into her skin, carefully balancing on her femurs and bruising them and her skirt is riding up her waist and her nylons are becoming twisted, and she’s trying to struggle against him but the movement doesn’t quite reach the surface (her muscles are not responding, for all he knows, she might as well just be lying still, like a log).

He kisses her and she hates him with everything she cannot show, he’s still shushing her like some dim-witted child even though she’s not making a sound, she wouldn’t _dare_ , and she hates that _stupid_ person named Molly Ann Hooper, because she can’t fight back, she can’t even keep her mouth closed, it just yields to him. He’s all tongue and stubble and hostile and unwelcome teeth, inside her mouth, on her neck, down her jaw line, with her face smashed against his; this is just one of many violations; and she thinks, _the last time I kissed him was the time I broke up with him, and I was kissing him goodbye_ , and she thinks with an internal shudder, _and now he’s kissing me goodbye too_.

He presses the blade of the scalpel hard enough to break skin and she feels blood, _her_ blood coming to the surface, near her right shoulder; he’s humming that fucking song ( _kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree_ ) and this time, she does scream.

 

~oOo~

 

They arrive in three cars with sirens on and guns out, even though they all know that he would not be there by the time they arrived. The sense of urgency remains, as they blast through the empty hospital corridors and down to the quiet mortuary (which is always quiet, but especially so at almost one o’clock in the morning), and there she is.

She’s not dead, because Moriarty doesn’t care about her enough to kill her; he doesn’t really care at all either way, but he does prefer a messy death and those take time that he does not have. If he’s going to get his hands dirty, might as wellsavor it. She's already broken, but her phone is also smashed, because he felt like breaking something more. Of course he did. He was angry and anger has to manifest itself _somehow._ He likes to see the fruits of his labor laid bare for the world to see. 

He’s not hiding; he’s long gone. Lestrade is in front, though, just to be safe, and Donovan and Sherlock and probably Mycroft somewhere with his phone-attached attaché observing. There are a few other Yarders about, and they fan out, and it’s painful to watch something so futile. Lestrade and Donovan don’t bother with the search; they both kneel down next to Molly. Sally grabs as many towels as she can find and her own scarf, presses down as hard as she can on the _something_  oozing blood, even though the wound is only _almost_ life-threatening, but it gives her something to do. Molly’s eyes are wide and glassy, and her lips are barely moving but they are still the faintest mimicry of speaking without making any actual sound. She’s crying, too, but whimpering, not sobbing, and Lestrade wishes she would _just_ sob. He knows how to console sobbers, he’s used to seeing it with the loved ones of victims, but whimperers, not in the slightest. Grief is something entirely different than fear, which is its own hellish monster. Lestrade can’t fix fear or tell a person that fear will pass, because he doesn’t know that. Grief has stages and support groups and therapists and eventually, even pills. Fear is forever, at least, until the initial cause is passed, but even then, it lingers within closets, under beds, and behind shower curtains and in nightmares.

He tries hushing her, comforting her, but that just makes it worse, and he doesn’t know how or why.

So instead, he just sits there with Sally Donovan pressing cloth on a wound that would scar but not kill (that was its real purpose, after all), but cannot be tended to by a police sergeant with rudimentary field medical skills. He sits and watches, and then he begins to talk to her. Not ask her questions; any information would be hardly helpful, incoherent and probably make her worse. He just _talks_. About anything he can think of that might calm her down. He begins talking about breakfast that morning (coffee, jam on toast, he burned it in the toaster like he has every morning since he got a new toaster two months ago and never bothered to learn the settings). He talks about last week’s football game and _goddamn Liverpool_ because he _hates_ that team, and has hated it ever since he was a boy. Hate is taught during childhood, after all, it's not inherent, he tells her, but that she shouldn’t hold it against him. He talks about how he wants to maybe get a dog (he really is quite lonely, but he doesn’t say that), but he couldn’t care for an animal with his work schedule.

Then Sherlock comes in and ruins everything, as is his way. Molly just stares up at him with her impassive, sedated eyes, and he shouts at her, and that scares her again.

The whimpering is back.

Now Lestrade is angry, and so is Donovan. They both stand, leaving her on the ground as they wait for the doctors and nurses and trolley to come take her for care. To her, they look like trees and she is the small animal carcass on the forest floor, staring up into the sky.

She’s never seen trees argue before. She’s never seen a forest spin before, either. Sherlock swoops back down, hawkish and furious. “Where is it? Where did he put it? What was it?” He’s yelling again, _God, stop shouting, it’s too loud, I just want to sleep and I’m afraid and I can’t answer, doesn’t he_ know _that?_ She doesn’t even know what “it” is supposed to refer to, but she is cold and Sherlock is not helping.

“Stop…” She says. Or maybe she doesn’t say that; maybe it’s just her mind telling her to say that even though her vocal cords and her lips and tongue and teeth refuse. She looks again at Mary’s hand (the ring is still there; so are the marker smudges), then at Sherlock, then at Lestrade and back at Sherlock, and then at the blood on her blouse, open with her bra completely exposed and stained, and she cries, more heartily this time. Lestrade begins to speak again, and she falls asleep. Or passes out. Either way, when the trolley arrives to collect her, she is unresponsive.

Lestrade wants to punch Sherlock, but he doesn’t, because you don’t punch dead men, and besides, Mycroft is there, somewhere (even if he can’t be seen, he’s always there, watching).

“What is wrong with you?” He turns back to Sherlock, who continues searching without any regard to Molly.

Donovan answers this time. “You have to ask?”

“I see you harbor no remorse about your actions, Sally, and we’re all back normal, before you decided I was a fraud and I jumped off the roof of this very building,” Sherlock remarks from above Mary’s body. Donovan doesn’t respond, instead, choosing to leave with the unconscious Molly on the stretcher. Fine either way. It doesn’t matter to Sherlock because he’s in his own world now. He’s rooting about as though she’s a sand dune and he’s a child at the beach searching for crabs and seashells. The look of pleasant surprise he bears when he finds Jim’s “present” is disturbingly reminiscent of that same child discovering whatever it is that he had been looking for. 

“Well? What is it?” Lestrade peers over Sherlock’s shoulder. It is a small flash drive encased in a small plastic bag.

“Memory stick.” He turns it over, examining it, carefully unwrapping the plastic from the casing and scrutinizing every minute detail. “Not used often, but not exactly prized. Fairly cheap, probably doesn’t even have too many firewalls or security measures—this is something a schoolboy would save reports on, not something government officials use, so it’s hardly valuable. Scuff marks, all over it. He cut open her heart, placed the memory stick inside it, closed it back up. Symbolic, surely—he _does_ love his theatrics. Still, he left it for me, which means that he’s continuing his game and this is a piece of the puzzle, but this isn’t important to him or a client, and besides, he doesn't take clients anymore, so obviously, the memory stick was meant for us to see. If it were to be taken, no one would notice or care that it was missing. No state secrets or illicit photos on this.

“I’ll be in the lab if you need me. I’d rather not be disturbed, so unless it’s a life-or-death situation, I’d prefer it if you’d let me alone.” He turns on his heel, peeling off gloves and heading toward the door, but Lestrade grabs his forearm. Sherlock goes stock-still. He’s not used to being touched, especially not brusquely. He’s been punched, but punches don’t linger the way Lestrade’s firm grasp does. This is the grab that says, _we’re not finished here._ It says, _we still need to discuss how you died and why and what you’ve done_. Or, _I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know for a fact that you’re safe_. Sherlock can read people. He doesn’t always understand them, but he can read expressions and so he sighs. “Come on, then. I don’t have the energy to argue with you. Besides, I can use you against my brother.” He exits, memory stick in hand, with Lestrade close on his heels, and neither one of them says anything but they both think about the parallels to times past.

They have not spoken about John in almost half-an-hour.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm not very explicit for a very good reason. I leave some of it ambiguous so you can interpret for yourself exactly what happened (and the extent to which it occurred) now that you've finished the chapter. Make a decision. Comment, review, kudo, bookmark, ignore—I don't mind. 
> 
> **Edit:** Regardless of whatever your interpretation of Moriarty's action is, know this: This attack was _sexually-based_ in nature. Moriarty is all about control, domination, and humiliation. He does not want to kill Molly, but rather, force her to be ashamed and regret helping Sherlock. Killing is easy, pedestrian and clean, and the effects are short-lived (please, pardon the pun). I thought of the single most terrifying and horrific thing I could think of happening to me were I in Molly's shoes, and I wrote it. We are not the same two people, so your idea of terrifying might be very different from mine. But know that it was sexually motivated, at least, so I write Molly like a victim of sexual violence (not necessarily assault/rape, but there are many different sorts of sexually-based offenses that could have conceivably happened in the context of this chapter. I'd be very interested to hear your interpretations of this chapter. Your opinions. Your thoughts. Your emotions. 
> 
> As always, thank you for lovely comments and I welcome reviews greedily. Kudos, bookmarks, hell, just getting _views_ is a success for me. Thanks to my resident betas/strippers Sophie, Jasmine and Liz.
> 
> Also my granddad is going on limited profile view on Facebook. Just in case you were curious.


	4. Between the essence and the descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sebastian reveals he studied English literature at university, cocaine is a hell of a drug, saints and angels exist about as much as heroes, John plays at being a detective and realizes he should never have quit his day job (whatever that was—being irritated with Sherlock was his day job, dealing with the sick droves of London was just the goddamn cherry on a perfectly fucked-up sundae), Jim watches Glee which is unnamed but not-so-subtly referenced, names are important and the italics come back with a vengeance. Though those ones never really left, to be quite honest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. Hello there. Sorry that I haven't kept to my once-every-24-hours-at-1 a.m.-or-so updating schedule like I had been with the past three chapters. Let's see. Triggers for this chapter...  
> Jim being obnoxiously creepy and quite unambiguously gay (Sebastian too, kind of sort of maybe.), Sebastian Playing Pretend, Eton College references (I suppose that could be a trigger for victims of...boarding...schools?), droooooogs (the illegal kind), and the author making mincemeat out of what she's sure is probably a perfectly good chemical used in prescription sleeping medication with an unfortunate history and some rather nasty side effects and amping them Up to Eleven. Also, not-so-much-implied-as-smacking-you-in-the-face-with-non-explicit-slash MorMor here. Considering most MorMor, this is pretty much kindergarten stuff.
> 
> Bonus: Literature! Now with added historical references. And metaphors. 
> 
> As always, thank you for your reviews/comments/kudos/bookmarks/views/love/minimal attention maybe and I look forward to more! I hate exclamation points but I want to adequately express my gratitude! I don't know what I'm yelling about!
> 
> I own nothing, and my friend recently threatened to sell my right pinky toe and my left elbow on the black market _as though he thinks that any body part of my sickly, thin and frail form would fetch any sort of profit I mean **honestly** I'm not exactly grade-A material here _

**_“Unfortunately, a superabundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares.” –Sir Peter Ustinov_ **

 

As a doctor, John understands the pharmacology of drugs, and the psychological, neurological, toxicological and physiological effects of narcotics on the human brain and body. They are poisons, and when people are poisoned, they must be cared for and treated.

He has never taken illegal drugs before, _especially_ not recreationally (if that’s what you can call it), and had no plans to do so before he found himself about to die.

The first time drugs are forced in his system, he feels euphoric and he knows that is the point. He knows that the point is that soon, he will be dependant on them to feel anything at all; soon, he will _want_ to make everything disappear in a haze of whatever-it-is (a stimulant, judging by his heartbeat, nothing majorly hallucinogenic, at least not on the first hit, injected rather than inhaled). He knows what is coming, so he resists the sneaking desire, the thirst growing steadily in the back of his throat and curling around his lungs.

But that is later. This is now, before the drugs have even entered John’s mind, before he begins the final descent into broken-down delirium.

Although the man, whoever he might be, has given him little to no indication of how long he has been held, he assumes it is closer to 48 hours than 24, and already his body is collapsing in on itself and wasting away. He’s not as young as he once was and he cannot sustain himself indefinitely. Whenever the door opens, he braces himself, already conditioned to expect pain. Usually, he receives it in spades.

This time, the footsteps are not the same. They are lighter, softer. He has not had any interaction with anyone but the smoking man, and now, he does not know what to expect, and so he panics. He presses himself against the wall without making a sound, with the rusty, cold metal pipe digging into his bare, scarred and bloody back. Perhaps if he tries, _really_ tries, he can fall through the wall, or better yet, _become_ the wall, because you can’t torture a wall. You can beat it and destroy it and burn it, but it’s just a wall, and it can’t feel anything.

The owner of the footsteps is hovering near him. He has something in his hands, and he sets it down—it sounds like something with water—he prepares himself for the first blow and…and then there’s the cold cloth pressing against the deepest gash, the knife wound on his side. It’s congealed and beginning to heal, but he did lose quite a bit of blood—not enough to kill him, never enough _to just fucking kill him_ , but enough to remind him with forced perpetuity that he is alive, breathing and beating and struggling and hurting. With the wet cloth pressed gently against the wound, he gasps and squirms ( _like a child_ , he thinks ashamedly). His unseen caretaker doesn’t say anything, just dunks the cloth in the water again and continues his nursing. Eventually, John relents, concedes defeat—this is not a battle worth fighting.

"Who are you?” He whispers; he’s afraid of the answer. Everything is frightening when the sense you depend on most is taken away from you.

"Don’t worry so much. I’m not him.” This voice is softer, younger, _not_ a smoker, still male, with a lower-class accent. There are no public school affectations decorating his words. Sounds Northern, maybe Birmingham or Lancashire, he doesn’t _know_ , and that’s what worries him more, even if he’d never say it. Now he knows why Sherlock had been so afraid in the pub in Devon. He didn’t know, just like John _doesn’t_ _know_ , which means he doesn’t even know how to prepare for the worst. He doesn’t know what the worst is. “Stay still. I’m doing this for you. You’re a doctor, right? Gotta take care of yourself better.”

"Would that I could.” He laughs, but doesn’t mean it, and they both know it. In his mind, the person sounds to be little more than a boy, maybe twenty or so. “So what are you, then? Does he know you’re doing this?”

"Who, Seb? Yeah. I suppose he does.” _Seb_. Sebastian. The smoker. Does he realize he’s given the name? Does he care? Does it matter? Perhaps the young man sees John’s face, because he answers. “You’re probably going to die here, so what does it matter if you know his name?”

"If I’m going to die, then why bother taking care of me at all?” John hasn’t been broken completely yet, and he still holds onto that small hope that Lestrade or Donovan or even Mycroft will come for him, but he doesn’t show it. “Why are you doing this?”

"He didn’t ask me to, if that’s what you’re thinking. You just have to stay alive for a bit longer. We’re not finished yet.”

“We?”

“Mm. Me and Seb. Mostly Seb.”

“Just you two?”

“No!” He shouts suddenly, knocking over the water pail. John can feel the water spread out, touch his feet (so goddamn cold, it’s already freezing in here and now _this_ ). “I can’t answer that. Not supposed to.”

“What is this about? I don’t have money. I don’t know information; I’m not particularly talented at anything. What’s the bloody point of this?”

He doesn’t answer for a while, but then responds almost thoughtfully. As if it’s a casual interaction with a friend. Not with a man about to die, with the “about” never coming quickly enough.

“Just something to do, I guess. Seb’s a hunter. Not much to hunt in London in the winter.”

“So take a fucking vacation!”

“It’s not the same. That’s not as fun.”

“Fun for who?”

“Not so much for me, but so long as I get what I want, I’m happy.”

“What do _you_ want, then?” John asks, softly, gently prodding. This is his "doctor" voice, for dealing with children who are frightened, not for killers and murderers and kidnappers.

“I dunno. I guess want to keep my mind occupied. Seb takes care of me. He gets me what I need.”

There’s a gnawing sense in the back of John’s mind ( _boredboredboredbored_ ) that he is forgetting something. A man with money. _Seb does what the man with the money tells him_. So this man is lying.

Unless he’s being sponsored, of course, but the world’s only consulting criminal is dead, so who would be daft enough to support a couple of sadistic psychopaths? ( _“He’s a psychopath. Psychopaths get bored.”)_ It wouldn’t be the first time; copycat criminals are not entirely unheard of, but no one knew Jim Moriarty’s internal structure except for Jim Moriarty, but he’s dead, and if someone is playing criminal-for-hire, then that would mean that someone knew Moriarty’s game as well as he did, and John could count those people on one hand.

The most obvious one is Jim Moriarty himself, but he’s dead.

Then Sherlock _(don’t think about him don’t think about him he’s not there anymore he’s gone he’s safe now don’t_ ), who is also dead.

Mycroft, but this requires _legwork_ , and what’s the point if it doesn’t involve money or country?

And then there’s John, but he wouldn’t say he knew Moriarty’s game at all; he just pretended like he knew _something_.

He’s exhausted the list he knows of, so he tries anyone who has ever been involved with Jim Moriarty, and his mind is racing ( _is this how Sherlock felt all the time, then? Trying to make these tenuous connections and deduce, and faster, faster, never slowing down, your brain just always go! go! go! and never stop, can’t stop, always absorbing new datadatadata until you take one more hit or your head hits the pavement STOP)_ John’s internal voice is screaming at him, maybe because he can’t stop thinking like/about/without Sherlock, but also because he’s panicking, and he doesn’t want anyone to see that he’s scared because _keep buggering on, soldier_.

Who is left?

Irene Adler is dead, but she was one of his pawns anyway, even if she thought she was so clever, so regal, so powerful, so she doesn’t even come close to counting.

Molly Hooper? _Molly_ , really?

Jefferson Hope. Dead (he should know, he fired the shot).

General Shan of the Black Lotus. Dead.

Everyone else, probably dead. Loose ends are neither stylish nor pragmatic, and if Jim Moriarty was anything, he was both of those.

Oh. _Oh_. ( _This is a turn up, isn’t it, Sherlock?)_

Who would hire a couple of psychopaths to hold boring _John Watson_ (keep him alive just a bit longer), if not for Jim Moriarty?

Which means that Jim is alive.

Which means that Jim is angry.

Which means that the game isn’t over yet.

Which means that John is the new game, and he loses, no matter the eventual victor.

Which means that these men are simply pawns.

Pawns are sacrificed to the armies of the opposing king.

The opposing king?

Mycroft. Lestrade. _God?_ Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter who he’s sacrificed to because he’s going to die anyway, because John is a pawn too, and his is but to do and die, rush headlong into battle, and he’s fought a new war every day of his life, so he knows what it is like to suicide-charge into enemy lines without any concern of personal safety. And he doesn’t know how to disobey orders.

His is but to do and die.

Do and die.

Die.

Moriarty died.

Sherlock died.

And the young man is cleaning the wounds again and speaking, but John doesn’t hear him, and he’s in pain, more pain than he had been before, and he’s shaking too. He can’t trust this boy, he can’t trust himself, or anything, he can’t even trust his _goddamn eyes_ because they don’t tell him anything at all, and all of a sudden, he’s crying and alone, and his feet are still wet.

 

~oOo~

 

Jim doesn’t sit; he lounges. Even when he’s sitting straight up, in his expensive suits, drinking an expensive drink or just some tea, he still lounges. It’s not the posture that’s important; it’s the sense of indolence he exudes. Sebastian knows that this is a ruse; there is nothing indolent about Jim, because he’s always filled with tumultuous energy, just below the surface. He’s always frenetic, but sometimes, he hides it, like it’s a game. In fact, it _is_ a game. Everything’s a game, and Jim will always win, even if he’s dead.

When he watching crap telly on rainy afternoons with an ex-army doctor beaten and battered in their basement, he’s winning.

When he’s having a sandwich in some French Riviera café in Paris, he’s winning.

When he’s getting arrested for stealing the goddamn Crown Jewels from the goddamn Tower of London, he’s winning, he’s winning, he’s winning and _nobody_ has to know it. Not now, at least. They’ll know soon, when he’s burned everything to the ground and makes glass out of the ashes. Then he can break the glass, trample it, _own_ it, slit throats with it, because he is king, and kings do whatever they want.

The Napoleon of crime, he is. Does that make Sebastian Moran his beloved Joséphine?

At that thought, Sebastian laughs out loud ( _because Napoleon loved Joséphine, it’s said, and Jim doesn’t know what love is, couldn’t love even if he understood it)_ , and Jim doesn’t even acknowledge him, except to reprimand him.

“Shut the fuck up, Sebby, my show is on.” He says. What is his show? Some American musical he got into when he was having a grand old time fucking with that stupid morgue girl from St. Bart’s. Everything is his show. Truly. He’ll watch _anything_ so long as it has movement in it; anything to keep him distracted from his own boredom.

The blood on Jim’s once-crisp shirt that lies in a crumpled heap on their bedroom floor is probably staining the carpet. Jim likes to keep a clean house, and if it’s not clean, he torches it. Sebastian _should_ pick it up before it dries, clean it, but he doesn’t particularly care. His own flat is spartan and immaculate and looks suspiciously like the Army barracks, but it’s very difficult to make something messy when you have nothing to clutter it with.

When Sebastian first dragged an unconscious Doctor Watson into the empty warehouse, Jim talked nonstop, at least until after Sebastian’s first beating of the good doctor, which quieted Jim for a while as he stood silently in the back and observed, suppressing giggles like a gossiping schoolgirl, but then, afterward, the man’s shouting had annoyed him, so he sent Sebastian back to shut him up. Normally, he likes to watch and be in the room with the victims, and helps ( _no, Jim doesn’t “help”; he never helps. He takes control.)_ But this time, he remained outside, watching his telly and listening to a soundtrack of strangled shouts and fist on bone.

_“This’ll be fun, Sebby, I love to fuck with people’s minds. They’re so insignificant and fragile; it’s hilarious to watch them try.”_

Jim can be anyone he wants whenever he wants, and that disturbs Sebastian less than it probably should, but more than Jim’s other (negative?) attributes do. Sadism, psychopathic tendencies, impulsive murders, violent outbursts, mood swings as deep as the equator—those Sebastian can deal with. He hates seeing Jim become an entirely different person at will because _what if the person Jim becomes next doesn’t need or want Sebastian anymore and pop! kills him?_ Sebastian has grown used to the idea—not an idea, the fact—that Jim will kill him one day when he gets bored and there’s nothing better to do. Sebastian will someday become extraneous, but for now, he has a purpose. That’s fine. It’s not that Sebastian doesn’t care about his own life, but he can’t see himself doing anything but working for Jim.

Working is a loose term. Sebastian works for himself, but Jim basically owns Sebastian, so where does the dominion of Sebastian Moran end and the kingdom of Jim Moriarty begin? In Sebastian’s mind, they have become one country, a hyphenate allied by mutual self-harm and self-loathing and a desire to kill monotony. They are Gavrilo Princip assassinating Archduke Ferdinand; they are Austria-Hungary, starting World War I by knocking down and destroying that first domino. They are the Axis Powers. They are the Third Reich, and this is their personal Holocaust—wherein they exterminate good until only the bad and the fascinating and the anti-angels remain, and then, they conquer that too, and then they die, because there’s nothing to be done after you’ve won it all (that’s why the game is perpetual, until they’ve— _he’s_ —either killed everyone or they’re— _he’s_ —dead. It’s not “them”, it’s always just “Jim”, because Sebastian is furniture that can shoot and one of the pieces in the game that Jim plays like he’s motherfucking God. Jim will always win, so long as there’s another game afterward and everyone is dealt a new hand—but only Jim is dealt a cheating hand, and he’s the only one who gets to roll with loaded dice, because that’s how he likes it).

Jim loves playing the odds; he loves poker and roulette and oh God, Russian roulette is his personal favorite, but he especially loves it when he wins. 

Jim stands up. The programme is over, and he doesn’t want to sit through the credits to see the little teaser for next week because _who cares, surprise me_.

Here is Jim’s first move. He had been watching from the sidelines, always in the game, but he hasn’t yet placed his bets and really _played_. It always worries Sebastian when he takes this long to get the ball rolling, even though he’d never say anything.

“Well, Sebby, darling,” He says, putting on a perfect imitation of a young man’s Birmingham accent. “Don’t you think I should pay little Johnny-boy a visit?”

His voice sounds sweet and trustworthy and everything Jim is not. Sebastian grins, because he’s excited for this bluff too, because this will surely break poor, trusting John Watson, who has sat so resolutely for 35 hours and 23 minutes in the dark (not that he’d know; he’s fucking blind at the moment, but darkness is partly psychological and partly physical, and there’s no stopping it once it’s starting creeping into a person’s mind).

Jim wanted Watson permanently blind; he’d wanted to tear out his eyes with his own two hands (it makes sense, he’d been reading _King Lear_ at the time and decided he hated Gloucester; Jim just gets so _fixated_ sometimes. He is Edmund; he is betrayal and bastardry and rage. Maybe Sebastian isn’t Joséphine at all; maybe he is both Goneril and Regan, killing each other simultaneously.)

(Yes, Sebastian isn’t a complete fool. He likes to read; his mother had read to him when he was little, and he’d enjoyed reading all the old classics in school. Literature had been the only class he’d enjoyed at Eton; God knows he hated maths and physics and all the sciences, even though he can calculate wind force and air speed velocity better than most and in only seconds. He read on flights to Iraq, he reads in cars or on rooftops waiting for his mark to appear, not to escape from his world, but to plan new ones. He plans for the worlds that Jim can destroy when this one’s over and done with.)

(Jim does not like to read, but he does like to be read to, particularly when _his_ Sebby reads to him, because that way he can even own Sebastian’s voice.)

(Sebastian doesn’t mind that Jim owns everything he is, even his voice. Jim can take anything; he can take everything and burn it, and he has already, in a way.)

Jim wanted John blind for good, but Sebastian persuaded him otherwise. Not out of pity or mercy for the doctor, but because he wanted the doctor to see Sherlock Holmes die as he’d seen Jim die. Can’t do that if you don’t have eyes. He’d suggested chemical blindness, so Jim had Sebastian test it for almost four months on twenty-three poor sons of bitches before they decided on the proper technique and the proper dosage of ammonia for dear Doctor Watson. Jim is a man of maths and sciences, and everything must have hypotheses and experiments abound with equations and complicated formulae. Sebastian did not complain, even if he dislikes that sort of precise work, experimentation with methodology and hypotheses, because he got to play with destroying men.

The tiger watches the man formerly called Jim Moriarty put on a new face and a new voice. He becomes someone else. His face falls a bit, relaxes, even though John won’t be able to see it; it’s not quite so pinched around the eyes and it’s tired and sad and resigned. This is a mask that definitely looks younger and would blend in on the street without a second glance and they wouldn’t even _know_ that this was the same man who was all over the papers for nearly a year. It’s a face with kindness even though that’s impossible and Sebastian hates it, just the same way he’d hated seeing Jim as “Jim from I.T.”. He wears face that has some hope of salvation. He picks up a bucket of cold water and rolls up his sleeves. He’s changed into jeans; this is who he would be if he were a little less insane, a little less violent, a little less ambitious, a little less snakelike, a little more not like Jim Moriarty.

This is the magpie taking flight.

Sebastian knows, of course, that there is something wrong. There has been something wrong since the minute he found Jim almost dead on the rooftop because he tried to blast his fucking brains out just to kill one man. Sebastian would have thought he was too fond of himself to die for any number of men, one, fifty or a million, but one man, _just Sherlock Holmes_ , and that’s why it’s easier than usual for Sebastian to destroy John Watson, because John is just like him and Sebastian is used to destroying himself over and over again. John Watson has lost everything, but more importantly, he helped drive Jim to the edge, and his best friend had died and that pushed Jim over.

And now he is falling.

( _Falling’s just like flying, except there’s a more permanent destination_.)

Jim should be flying; he’s a bird, a magpie, but he’s falling, and soon, he will hit the ground unless Sebastian can catch him like he always does. Sebastian doesn’t know if he can this time.

So he watches Jim go into the dark room, turn on the lights and slosh the bucket around. He never does anything halfway, so when he takes on this role as “Michael”, an angel, a saint, a savior, a.k.a. John Watson’s only friend in the world right now, he even takes on clumsiness. Jim washes away dried blood and tends to the doctor’s wounds with tenderness that is, frankly, disturbing. It is like watching a horror film and the music is reaching its peak and you _know_ something is going to jump out, but you’re scared anyway. Sebastian doesn’t classify it as fear, of course, but it’s there, and he knows they’re too far gone to turn back. They have crossed the Rubicon. This is zero hour; this is the terminus of the reign of Moriarty and Moran, and he doesn’t know whether, after the next in a long line of cessations, there will be anything left of them to start anew like they always have done.

It is at this juncture that Sebastian Moran knows that they are all dead men walking.

 

When Jim leaves John alone again, he looks at Sebastian and nods. He rolls a cigarette with nimble fingers, pruned slightly from cold water, and offers it to Sebastian, and then lights a flame. Sebastian inhales as much smoke as he can and blows it away from Jim’s face; Jim hates smoke in his eyes, but loves the smell of it on Sebastian. The match has burned down to Jim’s fingers, and they must be feeling the pain, but he doesn’t care. He crumbles the match head between his fingers and winces, but smiles.

Sebastian hates it when he’s playing at being mysterious like this, but he doesn’t really, because he doesn’t really hate anything about Jim. It’s not in his business or his job description to hate or like, just to obey, even when Jim doesn’t say anything at all.

In Jim’s bag is a smaller, leather briefcase the size of a textbook and he motions for Sebastian to get it. He grins and takes out the bag of white powder, taking a little on his finger and tasting it.

“Here it is. You’re familiar, aren’t you, Sebby?”

It’s not heroin, even though that had been Sebastian’s addiction, it’s most definitely cocaine, but it’s cut with something.

“What is it?” Sebastian feels stupid for asking and regrets it as soon as the word’s left his mouth, because he knows it’s coke, but maybe Jim is feeing good after his successful bluff and will answer.

He is. “Coke, of course; don’t be daft, Seb. Tell me, Sebby, do you know what dimethyltryptamine is?”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. Of course he doesn’t.

“That’s right; you failed all your A-levels in the sciences, don’t remind me. How _you_ got into Oxford is astounding—or it would be if you didn’t have a rich mummy and daddy with a fancy name.”

“So what does it do?”

“This coke is cut with it. Dimethyltryptamine. A psychedelic compound with a high propensity for causing negative auditory and visual hallucinations, found in plants from the same genus as psilocybin.”

“Psilocybin…mushrooms, right?”

Jim claps his hands. “ _Good_ , Sebby, you’re not quite as dumb as you look.”

“This for the good doctor, then?”

“Well, it’s certainly not for _you_ , if that’s what you’re asking.”

Sebastian glares at him. Jim doesn’t often bring up the drugs and poverty he’d found Sebastian devastated with. If anything is taboo to Moran, it is that, just like the way Moriarty had forbidden Sherlock Holmes’ name for the months during his recovery.

“Sherlock had been an addict, you know.”

Sebastian knows.

“Cocaine landed him in rehab a few times, but this will be fun, won’t it? Watching good Doctor Watson, clean cut, the paradigm of morality and lawfulness, trip out of his _fucking_ mind, it’ll be like New Years’ and Christmas and all the holidays wrapped into one. I just wish I could see Sherlock’s fucking face.”

“So why dithyl—whatever, though? Holmes wouldn’t have fucked around with psychedelics.”

“ _Dimethyltryptamine_ , call it DMT if you _must_ , and no, that was my own little gift. DMT is more volatile than average hallucinogens and has a greater propensity for adverse side effects, so it’ll be like a slow poisoning—you know how I love those.”

Sebastian knows.

“Go ahead. Taste a bit. I won’t mind.” Jim flicks some of the powder at Sebastian, and it takes all his self restraint not to snort up a bit and his struggle is fucking hilarious to Jim, just _fucking_ fantastic, and Sebastian shifts his focus from resisting drugs to resisting punching Jim in the face. “Fine. You’re no fun. You were so much more entertaining when you were high.”

“Couldn’t work when I was high. Hands shook too much.”

“But you were so _helpless_ , it was just adorable. And you were always so angry. Like watching a little puppy try to attack a big dog. That’s what you are. You’re a pup, Sebby, but you think you’re a pit bull.”

Sebastian hits him this time and Jim laughs again when he picks himself up from the floor.

“Lucky you didn’t knock over the coke; I would have made you snort it up from the floor until your brain was bleeding out your nose.” He’s giggling again, and he’s running his tongue over his now-bleeding lip. He tastes the blood, enjoys it, savors the iron-and-salt like it’s a fine wine, and then he kisses Sebastian, who is wondering if maybe Jim is a little high at the time, right now, everything right now. _Impossible, Jim likes his mind clear_ , Sebastian thinks, but then he thinks nothing.

 

~oOo~

 

He’s shaking, the drugs are rocketing through his veins and the tears are back and he hates it all.

Michael said it wouldn’t hurt, Michael said he’d take care of him, Michael _said_ , but where is Michael?

He doesn’t realize he’s saying Michael’s name until that man, Seb, laughs at him. _(He’s enjoying himself, more than he’d expected to. As much as he hates himself on drugs, Sebastian likes to watch other people tripping, because it makes him feel invulnerable.)_

“You got Michael in trouble, Johnny.” Seb growls ( _not exactly a lie, but not exactly the truth—Sebastian_ had _punched Jim in the face, after all, but now he’s back to playing the part of cruelty incarnate, so he exaggerates, a bit)_ , and John panics, because he knows that Michael was in trouble for taking care of him, and he’d asked, but he never insisted, and he is supposed to protect people, even if by “people”, the only people around to protect are the lackeys of his captors.

“W-wasn’t his fault. Not his fault.” He begins repeating it, the drugs kicking in, and then he squeezes his unseeing eyes shut, with his heartbeat making fireworks behind his eyelids. He gasps when the drugs reach their peak, and Seb laughs again, the laugh rattles around his brain and he can see the sound waves. The first thing he’s seen in _hours_ , _days, years_. He feels euphoric, like he’s flying and he _is_ flying, he can see Dover Beach where his gran had lived, he can see Brighton Beach from when he’d visited there with some mates in uni, and the Thames, he’s flying over Parliament and Baker Street, and he laughs and _means_ it, for once.

Jim comes in and wraps his arms around Sebastian, bearing newborn bruises and scratches all over his body, and they’re both smoking new cigarettes, and they laugh at the helpless little man tripping for the first time in his life.

“Looks like he’s enjoying himself. Thought you said that whatever-it-was is supposed to cause bad trips.”

“No, dumbass, I said it was more volatile and more likely to cause bad trips. DMT increases likelihood of negative hallucinations by 20 percent, particularly this recipe, but your average LSD batch has a 1 in 1000 odd of bad trips, which is 0.1 percent. We’ll just have to keep trying and upping the dosage.” He kisses Sebastian’s ear even though he knows Sebastian _hates_ that; it makes him jumpy. “I’m enjoying this. What do you think is rattling about in that funny little head of his?”

“Why don’t you ask the sorry motherfucker?”

Jim does. He slaps John upside the head, who can hardly be bothered; he’s in his own little world. He begins to babble, though, and it doesn’t make much sense at all, and that is fucking _hilarious_. Jim begins to giggle again, and can’t stop, he can hardly breathe and then he looks at Sebastian, who is holding a small flip camera.

“This is more fun than Tripoli, darling.” Jim says, as he picks himself up off the floor, dusting his bare shoulders and wiping barely dry smudges of John’s blood from his body. Now Jim looks directly into the camera. “Tell me, Sherlock, dear, what _shall_ we do with John next?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my resident betas/part-time strippers Liz, Sophie and Jasmine, as always. Special shout-out to noiselesspatientspider who is awesome. If you guys like this story, please feel free to submit its name to rec lists/Tumblr/share with friends/eat it/create an interpretive dance to it. Okay, that's enough shameless pandering for me. 
> 
> I'm sure DMT (yes, that _is_ its scientific abbreviation) is fine, though according to the ~5 hours of research I did on potential drugs/chemicals for this scene, it seemed most appropriate to what I was going on. Say what you will about my writing or my hobbies, but I'm an _awesome_ Googler. I mean really. I research like nobody's business. 
> 
> Also, I've never done drugs. So perhaps my interpretation/understanding of what it would be like to be _tripping balls_ might be a little off. I'll chalk it up to artistic license. 
> 
>  
> 
> We'll be back with your regularly scheduled Sherlock-Mycroft-Lestrade-Donovan-Molly POV stuff soon. I thought I'd give those sorry bastards a break for a bit.


	5. Between the idea and the reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry Watson makes an appearance, a bottle of scotch is left ignored, Lestrade deals with more crying and fails spectacularly, protocol is not followed, the Holmes boys are in constant competition and it is destructive, and Sally Donovan has a couple of redeeming features, which no one cares about because it's Donovan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for italics, parentheses, asides, alcoholism and sibling rivalry. And hugs. Bonus: Two quotes for the price of one! 
> 
> It's a shorter chapter and I'm sorry for the wait, but the next part is a bit longer, so be patient with me. I'd been trying to keep it to once-every-one/two-days updates but then I had a bizarre emotional breakdown and sat around watching Doctor Who feeling sorry for myself instead. Cheers!
> 
>  _and holy shit guys I leave for college in **10 days** _
> 
> As always, thank you for kudos/bookmarks/vague interest and I'm always up for having comments! 
> 
> I own nothing (these boys and girls are owned by ACD and Mofftiss/BBC), but I do have health care coverage so I have an insurance card, so does that count?
> 
>    
> EDIT: ALSO I'M HAVING ISSUES WITH THE GODDAMN FORMATTING GIVE ME A SECOND  
>  **EDIT EDIT: I'VE FINALLY FIXED IT. I SWEAR TO GOD I'VE SPENT LONGER TRYING TO FORMAT THIS ONE CHAPTER THAN I SPENT TRYING TO WRITE ONE OF MY COLLEGE APP ESSAYS. _I AM THE TECHNOLOGICALLY INEPT DUCK_ **

**_“Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.” —G.K. Chesterton_**

**_“They’ve promised that dreams can come true but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams, too.”  —Oscar Wilde_ **

  
“Sherlock, this is getting to be unnerving,” Mycroft says, ever the figure of stoicism, but his voice and his choice of word ( _unnerving?_ ) belie his mounting concern. “It’s been over 48 hours. Surely you know the odds of finding John alive are slim. And we know this is Moriarty—”

“So we know we _will_ find him alive, because he wants to break me, and if he kills John, then he can’t continue to hurt me. _Please_ , Mycroft, you know all this; must I tell you again how Moriarty’s mind works? You’ve met the man.”

“No, you do not have to explain his mind to me; I know you.” 

They are silent. Sherlock is jittery; he’s been still too long, he hasn’t eaten or smoked a cigarette since before his return from the grave and he _needs_ nicotine like he _needed/s_ John. Mycroft sees the shakes, but he has little time or patience for Sherlock in withdrawal, so he waves to his nameless assistant, who, despite not looking up from her mobile, automatically knows. She returns in a moment with tea and cigarettes, the Englishman’s virtue and the Londoner’s vice.

They each take a cigarette, and neither offers his lighter to the other, and they smoke like they’re willing theirs to burn the fastest. That is the brothers’ relationship. Always an unspoken competition, and often, the bellicosity between the boys has destroyed the well-being of those around them.

It had destroyed Mummy in the end, too. Mrs Violet Holmes could not bear to watch her sons at war with each other, and so she broke out, broke free, broke down, and then, she simply broke. Sherlock seems to prefer to think of her as some sort of imaginary friend who one day ceased to exist, as imaginary friends often do. This is no great heartbreak; he is used to people leaving, people _always_ leave him alone in the end, and he is used to living in a state of self-satisfied loneliness. Perhaps it is the child in him who finds it easier to rationalize the death of his mother as a fact of adulthood rather than a trauma or a tragedy. Of course, Sherlock was 16, almost 17, by the time of their mother’s death, already at Oxford (advanced for his age and younger than his so-called peers, never, ever fitting in, preferring to research), so he was well past the typical “childhood” era. 

Mycroft was older, barely 24, already high up on the ladder within the inner workings in the British government, and he watched the final disintegration of his family with characteristic detachment. He did grieve, in his own way, but he had seen it coming for years. He saw his mother more often than Sherlock did, in the year before she died, and he was thankful for that—the last thing he wanted was to have Mummy see Sherlock destroying his body with narcotics. And the thought of a conversation between a drug-addled Sherlock and their delusional mother, while enlightening, would be more than he could stand. 

Both boys loved their mother, in their own way. 

Both boys killed their mother, in their own way, too. 

Such is the way with families, or at least, the Holmes family. They drive each other to extremes and eventually, over the edge. Perhaps that is why sociopaths ( _though the current technical term_ is _Antisocial Personality Disorder)_ are so common in their family tree (is it nature or is it nurture that creates such people?)

Mycroft’s train of thought collides with a strange, unknown, unfamiliar woman in Scotland Yard. 

She bursts through the door with all the tenacity that her brother does ( _did?_ ) not possess. She is upset, alcohol lingering on her breath; although she does not shout or scream or say much of anything at all, the Holmes brothers hear her before they see her. Biting the inside of his cheek, Lestrade stands up, knowing full well who she is and what she wants to know. He hopes she’s not a whimperer too. He does not know how much more he can stand of today, or any day, really. 

The antithesis to John Watson marches through the floor towards Lestrade’s office. She represents the opposite of her brother, who is compact and sturdy in a gently protective, comforting way. John is dependable and wholly unassuming, someone who _could_ be commanding if forced, but much rather prefers to help than to lead. He is an oatmeal jumper and brown, non-brand shoes, second-hand mobiles and poor typing skills and coffee with no sugar (though he prefers tea).

She is not John Watson, but Harriet Watson, his sister, and she is _furious_ in a silent way, though she does not have a subtle bone in her body; if Mycroft and Sherlock were anyone else, they’d probably be terrified (like Lestrade is now, most likely). Ah, yes. Mycroft sees it now. The defining Watson family trait seems to be quiet, deadly rage. She looks nothing like him except for the eyes, but even though she is half-drunk, wide-eyed and pale, with wild red hair hastily pulled into a messy braid (coming undone, so she’s been drinking for a while), she is definitely a Watson. 

Despite their differences, Mycroft will also give them this: Watsons do not give up easily, and they are very, _very_ loyal to their loved ones, so when those two traits are forced to interact, not even the whole of Scotland Yard, the British government (even though he says he only occupies a _minor_ position) and the world’s _only_ consulting detective can keep Harry Watson from knowing what she wants to know.

"Where is he?” She demands, once she has reached Lestrade’s office and made a suitably visible spectacle out of them all. “Can I see him?” 

“You’re—” Lestrade begins, though in a way, he’s relieved that she interrupts him; it only gives him more time to think.

“You’re Lestrade, right? The Detective Inspector? Where the fuck is my baby brother? Why can’t I see him?”

Sherlock gets up, not to become a part of the conversation as he so often does, but to see _her_ , because he hasn’t seen her (or anything like her) ever in his life, and he’s always interested in the new and novel. Mycroft keeps an arm out to bar him from getting closer, like she’s a rabid dog, mostly to protect him in his own overbearing way. 

“You’re Ms. Watson, then, yes.” It’s not a question, just a reassurance. “I am DI Lestrade, and you’re here about your brother John. John is—” 

“He’s _missing_ , that’s what, isn’t he? Because no one asked me to identify a body. And for how long? How come nobody told me? Where is he? Who took him? Is he hurt? Fuck. _Fuck_.” She sits down. Drunken anger subsides to familial concern. Whimperer is looking less likely, to Lestrade’s relief. From her desk across the bullpen, Sally Donovan is secretly impressed with Watson’s sister; this is what brothers and sisters are supposed to do for their younger siblings. This is what Mycroft did _not_ do for Sherlock, and why she hated him as much as the Freak. He who kills the Freak is beneath the Freak. That’s what Sherlock has become, at least in her mind. The Yard’s very own little monster, back from the dead. 

Harry Watson needs to find her brother, because if she doesn’t, she’s failed her only mission as a Watson, the one she’s had since her little brother’s birth. Johnny. Protect Johnny. Take care of Johnny, because no one else will. He’ll try to take care of you, try to be angry with you, or argue with you, or fight back against you, he’ll try to protect you, but don’t _let_ him; that’s not his job. He can’t take your job when you’re already such a fuck-up. Even if he rejects you, make sure he’s okay—let him hate you, so long as he lives hating you. Try to make sure he’s happy and safe, because that’s all a big sister can do for her baby brother. 

Crying is so much harder while drunk, Harry decides, and she tries to be brave, but she’s exhausted. 

She had found out through a friend of a friend who works at Bart’s and so she heard about Moriarty attacking Molly in the morgue. Of course, the friend of a friend didn’t know too many details, only that some loony attacked that nice coroner girl, right as she was working on a body from the Weighhouse Street murders. Harry hadn’t heard about any murders, but when she called John and Mary each fifteen, twenty times each without an answer, she knew with a sinking feeling that it was the two of them. She was already slightly drunk, but she called everyone she could, just to be sure. Mike Stamford knew nothing. Molly Hooper didn’t pick up, of course (still unconscious, slow-acting drug means long-lasting effects). By the time she’d gotten Lestrade’s number, she was already on her way up the stairs of Scotland Yard, past protesting officers. She does not have the patience for protocol; her brother is gone, and she has to find him. 

Is it true? Who’s dead? Where’s John? Is Mary with him? Where are they? Who took them?” 

Lestrade’s head is spinning and he wonders if it was possible to get drunk off of someone else’s breath from across an office. 

"Ms., uh…Watson, I-I’m sorry, we’re very busy right now trying to find your brother. We are putting all our effort into this case, we can assure you. Your brother is well-liked here, well-known, almost like one of our own, and you know how coppers get when one of their own is hurt or missing.” He’s stalling for time, and she knows it. He doesn’t know what to say and he’s more intimidated by one small woman than by all of London’s finest journalists at a press conference. 

“What about Mary?” 

“O-oh, I’m very sorry to tell you this, Ms. Watson, but Mary Morstan was killed in the flat when John was taken.” 

Harry does not cry. 

“The man—well, _men_ , who took your brother are very dangerous, but we know for a fact that he’s still alive. It was a clean break, though, about Mary. She wouldn’t have been in much pain and it would have been quick. I’m very sorry for your loss.” Why is he being so awkward? It’s not this difficult with strangers, he supposed, but telling a colleague’s loved one is harder, always has been.

Harry still does not cry. Why won’t she just cry?

Sherlock wants to get closer and investigate everything about Harry Watson because of her brother, and Lestrade flashes his eyes, just briefly, a stern _no, not yet_ , but it’s too late, because Harry turns and sees him. 

“You.” She says, her mouth becoming thin, pale line and wheels turning with a flash of reminiscent fury. She and John make the same face when they’re confused. Eyebrows furrowed, lips pressed together, lines forming on the forehead. Same face on different people. Sherlock tucks this face away in his mind palace, creates a new enclave within John’s area titled “ _Harriet ‘Harry’ Watson_ ”. He puts her on the desk in that room, next to his bookshelves filled with books on John and cabinets filled with files, and all the pictures he has stored in his memory that he’s taken without ever having actually _taken_ them, and the sound of his voice is somewhere, but Sherlock doesn’t know exactly where. He’s been searching for some time now, but he’s misplaced it. He put it down and turned around and now it’s gone. That happens to normal people, doesn’t it? They forget things while their backs are turned. Yes, perhaps Sherlock Holmes is becoming slightly more normal, but if this is the cost (forgetting John), he wants nothing of it, whatever he had wished for as a child, on birthday cakes, eyelashes, wishbones and shooting stars be damned. 

“You’re Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. But you’re _dead_. You died; Johnny saw you die and it nearly killed him.” She stands up and reaches out to touch him, to ascertain the reality standing before her, but she recoils her hand. “No, he said you don’t much like physical contact.”

“We’ve never met. How do you know it’s me, then?” He doesn’t really hear himself speak the words; they just tumble out. This is unusual for him. Mycroft raises an eyebrow and continues to observe. 

“Who else could it be? Johnny described you.” And now she cries, _finally_ , she bursts apart like she’s been punctured, but Sherlock doesn’t understand _why, why, why_. She didn’t cry when she learned her future sister-in-law was murdered or that deadly criminals had taken John or when Lestrade was trying and failing to be comforting. Why would she cry now?

Suddenly, there are arms around his waist, she’s so _small_ , he realizes, so compact, so almost-familiar. He’s panicking, but he doesn’t show it. Emotions don’t quite reach his face normally, but sometimes they _just_ reach his eyes, and Lestrade and Mycroft both see the alarm sounding within him, but do nothing to rescue him. Harriet Watson, who does not get along with John, who is a lesbian who just got divorced ( _no, not “just” anymore, that was almost five years ago_ ), an alcoholic and someone who knows Sherlock without having met him, is hugging him and he does not know what to do. He thinks of what John would do in the same situation, and he raises his arms and holds her, and he wonders if she is thinking he’s John, just for a moment. He could never do this, day in and day out. Kindness and compassion and all that empathy. It’s draining him, even faking it. John is truly remarkable, he thinks, and realizes that he never did tell John just how remarkable he truly is until Sherlock had left and they were both completely alone. Then he said it all the time, even though John couldn’t hear him.

He wants to break away, and he feels small, smaller than Harry, like he’s folded in on himself and is disappearing, so he doesn’t. He lifts his arms in an alien gesture—he’s been _held_ , but never _hugged_ in his adult life except by John once, maybe twice, never _held_  another person of his own volition and free will, and it’s rare for him to be so perplexed by anything so minuscule. 

It does not take a lot to surprise Lestrade when it comes to Sherlock Holmes, but for Mycroft, almost nothing surprises him ever, but they are both surprised to see the beautiful will-o’-wisp, _who calls himself a socipath_ , of a man hold another person and look as though he might cry. 

So this is it, Mycroft thinks to himself. _This is my brother abandoning the Holmes family and joining a new one._

“Can I see her?” Harry asks, after months, centuries, millennia.

Lestrade looks up. It’s been almost over minute or two or ten; he feels awkward (as always, to be honest, in these situations—he’s sentimental, but doesn’t understand sentimentality, just the opposite of the Holmes brothers). “You wish to see Ms. Morstan’s body.” Not a question again, so she just nods. He sighs, but Mycroft answers first. For the first time in a very long time, Lestrade is grateful for the wan-faced bureaucrat.

"That would be a very poor decision, Ms. Watson,” he says, choosing his words carefully, ever the politician. “It would not be in your best interest, I think.” 

“ _I’d_ like to be the judge of that, thanks,” she bites back, acerbic—Watsonian rage, yes, there it is again. But then she backs down, packs away anger in her lungs and stomach, to save for later. “Maurice had mentioned something about an attack at the hospital, an attack on the coroner.”

“As I said, it is not a good idea to visit Ms. Morstan’s body at the present time.” 

“What happened? In the morgue?” She swallows carefully. So afraid, she is afraid of a man she’d never met because Johnny was so very, very afraid of him (she loves Sherlock, too, even though she’s never met him before now, because Johnny loves him and Johnny has always been the better one of two siblings).

He sees it. They all do. Mycroft answers first. “We cannot discuss it at the present time.”

She’s angry again ( _violent emotion never seems to have a chance to remain dormant for long with these ones, does it?_ ). “You keep _saying_ that. ‘At the present time’—what does that even fucking mean? Today? Tonight? Tomorrow? Years from now? Never? This is—my brother is _gone_ and I can’t even see his dead fiancée and you keep _saying_ those goddamn words and I don’t—I don’t understand; can’t you do anything? Can’t you feel anything but—”

She is cut off, because Sherlock has tensed, and then he holds her closer, sliding onto his knees. The weight of sentimentality has taken a toll on him, and he can’t sustain it when all he has had to keep him going is a cigarette, some tea and three biscuits, and no sleep since before John went missing. She collapses with him; that’s what big sisters do. If they are good for anything, it’s comforting littler siblings, even if Sherlock isn’t technically _her_ little sibling, he might as well be. He isn’t crying. He’s just catatonic. 

“How do you know he’s alive?” She whispers this, trying not to disturb Sherlock. The poor man’s system is short-circuiting. If he’s as much a human computer as Johnny had described him as, then this is too much input for him to process, and now he has to reboot. 

“He is. We know it for a fact.” Lestrade says, trying to be comforting. It’s not. 

“But how can you know that?” 

“The man—Moriarty—he wouldn’t take John unless he planned to keep him alive for some time. He’s impulsive, but he’s also methodical about human lives. It’s a game to him. John is—" 

“Detective Inspector.” Mycroft, who stares him down with a stern glare, interrupts Lestrade and Lestrade realizes what he’s said and how it could be construed.  
Donovan rushes in, and she’s looking harried and even more exhausted than anyone had ever seen her.

“Lestrade. I’m so sorry to interrupt, but—but Dr. Hooper is awake. I’m going to go straight to St. Bart’s."

And Sherlock is back up. He’s alert; this is what he thrives on, but Donovan stares him down and shakes her head. “Yes, yes, we should get over there—I need to ask her, speak to her, have her tell me _everything_.” He says, no longer trapped in catatonia.  

“No, not you.” She says. He pouts, but this only makes her features icier. “It would be best…I think…if I went. Alone.” 

She turns to Lestrade for help. Sherlock isn’t used to being told “no”, but the man _clearly_ does not understand; he never does. Mycroft touches Sherlock’s shoulder and shakes his head. 

“Now is not the time, Sherlock. Get back to the flash drive; there’s something there.” 

“But Molly has data. I can get data from her. Why does Sally get to go? She doesn't know what to look for. And the flash drive is boring; it’s useless, just a trick or a distraction, but _data_ , that’s what—”

“Sherlock, _no_.” That is Mycroft’s strained tone of voice when he is at the end of his rope, usually reserved for an extremely coked-up Sherlock or for unruly foreign diplomats. It hasn’t had to be used for a long time but it’s odd how quickly Mycroft slips back into the tone as though it was his natural voice. Sherlock turns to Mycroft, petulant and combative, but then it’s almost as though he steps back internally. He does not say anything at all, just stalks off on his own. Lestrade nods at Sally, and she too leaves the two men and the alcoholic woman in the office. Mycroft is next, and then it’s just Lestrade and Harry, and Harry is not whimpering or sobbing— _thank God_ , Lestrade thinks, because he’s had enough of (public) tears—and she sits looking altogether unlike what he had imagined John’s alcoholic, divorced, riotous lesbian sister to be like. She looks like a proper lady, only slightly crazed with grief. 

“D-Detective Inspector—it’s Lestrade, isn’t it? Tell…tell me about him, if you please.”

“Who do you mean?” 

“Johnny has told me about Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes. I know that Sherlock is dead and Mycroft is his government brother who sometimes kidnaps Johnny but _always_ returns him unharmed, and he’s the one paying for my brother’s flat, too, even though it makes Johnny unhappy and guilty and he didn't ask him to, anyway. I know that Sherlock and John were more like family to each other than they were to actual family, like his brother and me, and I think that was okay with me, because he was happy for a while, but then Sherlock died and he had the most horrible nightmares for the next few weeks. I didn’t trust him alone in that god-awful, empty flat, even though their landlady—Mrs. Hartford? Was that her name?” She has sobered up, but not completely. 

“Mrs. Hudson.”

"Yeah, Mrs. Hudson—she was lovely, and she always said that he could keep the flat and move back in whenever he wanted to, but he never did. Never liked to think about it. Never wanted to remember.”

“So what do you mean?”

“What I’m saying, Detective, is that I’m not stupid. I’m not completely oblivious. But John never told me about those nightmares of his, even when I begged him to and he was crying and upset and trying to hide it. You don’t have to protect me. That’s my job; I’m supposed to protect Johnny. I’m his big sister.” She’d never said the words out loud before, she’d never even strung the thoughts together that coherently but she knew, innately, that was what she was supposed to do. Yes, she and Sally Donovan would most likely get along splendidly.

Greg Lestrade is an older brother too (well, he is an older brother _and_ a younger brother at once, always caught in the middle), but he understands. He doesn’t let on that he does; even so, Harry can see a flicker of empathy and she feels a connection to Lestrade. They are bound by similar duty to their families. 

“’S my job to protect all sorts of people.” _Supposed to be, but fat lot of good you’ve done John and Sherlock and all those other people you find dead. To be fair, though, you’re generally called in after it’s too late._

“I mean, Lestrade, I’m trying to say that you don’t have to worry about me. I just want to know about the man who took Johnny because I _know_ you know him—I mean, not personally, but you’ve dealt with him before.”

“You want to know about Moriarty. Didn’t you read the papers?” 

“Sure. I read it all, and watched all the newscasters on the telly say this and that, I even _work_  in news, but that’s all speculation, innit? I don’t trust newspapers much anymore.”

He knows what she’s referring to. John doesn’t trust them either. Nor does Lestrade. Nor does the whole of Scotland Yard. 

“Yeah, neither do I, if you want the truth.”

“They keep getting it all wrong, and my brother isn’t stupid either, he’s _very_ smart. He’s loads smarter than me, even though I’m supposed to be older and wiser and whatever the bullshit cliché is. If Johnny says something, it’s true, because he’s the most honest man I know, and I _can’t_ lose him, Detective, I just can’t, because he’s all I have left. So please. I just want to know about the man—that Moriarty. Is he the man that Johnny has nightmares about? Is he the one who killed Sherlock? And Mary? Wasn’t he dead?”

“Sherlock was supposed to be dead, too.”

“That worked out well, didn’t it?” 

"Geniuses never exactly do things the right way, in my experience, the wankers.” Trying to keep the mood light, he crashes and burns, but neither makes a change in their grim expressions. He’s avoiding the question and she’s furious at him now, and he won’t like her when she’s truly angry. An angry Harry is worse than a drunken Harry, but a sobering-up, post-drunk, moderately hung-over, furiously protective Harry is apocalyptic, and no goddamn attempts at levity will protect the man sitting behind the desk from her explosion. He drops that strategy and instead returns to his natural state of harried, long-suffering exhaustion. 

He sighs, and rubs his face with his hands and considers opening up the expensive scotch he keeps in his locked drawer near his desk, but then realizes it would be bad form to drink hard alcohol while on duty, in the middle of New Scotland Yard in front of a grieving, panicked alcoholic. 

“First, let me tell you that I can’t say I know too much about the man. Most of what I know is from John, Sherlock and Mycroft, and a bit from Interpol and whatever I could get from MI5—but most of that was blacked out anyway. I spoke to him once after hauling him in from the Tower heist and hated it, and never did again. It was horrible. 

“He was an—well, I suppose he _is_. He _is_ an Irishman, born in Dublin. Mum died when he was eight in an accident, but it probably wasn’t an accident, and he lived with his father until he was fourteen, when the man was hauled off to jail and left him with his sister, on their own. Both disappeared pretty quick. There’s a bit of a gap there. Dunno what happened to the sister, but I can guess. He started popping up on criminal maps a few years later. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen when he got started, according to what we could glean, and we think he was responsible for the Carl Powers murder in ’87 and that would have made him only eleven years old at the time, so he probably got started young. Psychopath, extremely well-connected, sadistic, incredibly intelligent. Could kill or charm or hack his way out of the strongest cell in the world and then make you kill yourself afterward while thanking him.

“He’s got these kind of snake eyes that just _look_ at you and make you feel cold. They’re black, or at least, so dark brown you can’t tell where the pupil ends. Always seems to be enjoying himself, even when he’s angry—that’s according to John. He took John, you know. Before. He became obsessed with Sherlock and his meddling, because that’s really what Sherlock is good at. Moriarty didn’t seem to care either way about money or power, he just likes to cause trouble, and he does a hell of a good job at that. People would pay him to organize crimes, hence, the connections.”

She isn’t paying attention to the tail-end of his description. “What happened when he took John?” She’s not calling him ‘Johnny’ anymore. Her Johnny doesn’t get abducted by sadistic psychopaths. She protects her Johnny. Maybe this “John” person gets kidnapped, but not her brother. She doesn't know John, but she'd probably recognize him soon enough: he is the man with the steel-hard eyes invading Afghanistan. He is the man who shot Jefferson Hope through a window to protect his best friend. He is the man who was utterly broken after Sherlock's death, the man _her_ Johnny was trying to hide.

“Dunno all the details off the back of my hand. John went out for a bit, and while he was out, Sherlock arranged a meeting with his admirer, but John showed up with bits of Semtex all over him—” Lestrade bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds, and he doesn’t particularly want to talk about it, and he will never know all the particulars like the Holmes. “Details are details, but Moriarty got distracted. Decided he wasn’t ready to finish playing. Can’t tell you why. This all came out afterwards, when Moriarty had been in custody and preparing for trial.”

“And this is the man who has my brother?”

“Yes.” 

“You’re sure?” 

“Unfortunately, yes.” 

“So tell me, Mr. Lestrade…knowing what you do about Moriarty, what do you think John has had to go through already, and what do you think the chances are of me getting my little brother back alive are?” 

He’s been try to prepare for this question. He’s cultivated the answer like one of Sherlock’s bacterial cultures, in the back of his mind, and he’s still unprepared. “Um…I think we have the best people on the case and we’re doing everything we can to find—” 

“You’re not answering the question.”

“I think…that when you’re dealing with men as dangerous and as intelligent and as unstable as Moriarty…you can’t rightly say. But I do think that when we find John, which we will, he’s going to be in pretty rough shape and it will take a long time for him to get back to normal, if you want to know the truth.”

"So you don’t think we’ll find him dead in an alley or dumped in the Thames?”

“Not while Sherlock Holmes is breathing, no.”

“And if Sherlock Holmes isn’t breathing?”

"Then I don’t know that there’s much in the world we can do to save John’s life, even if we do find him alive in the end.”

The words hang heavy in the air and threaten to crush them where they sit. Lestrade looks at the woman to try to identify tells or any sort of indication of what’s to come next (in preparation, you know, it’s really 90% of any good plan, with 10% proper execution). But he can’t see through her. She’s striking, really. Not typically beautiful, but handsome. It’s funny how she and her brother are so alike but so different at the same time. Harry is vivid, filled with colors, all volatile and reacting at once. John is monochrome punctuated by splashes of the most vibrant of hues, but he’s resigned. He blends in and you don’t notice him when he walks by, but he leaves behind a sense of goodness and comfort. She works with telecommunications as a news producer. Well suited for the job, he supposes, with charisma and enthusiasm abound. He was just as well suited for the medical profession. Magnetism. That is Harry Watson. She was magnetic, but then, so was John, in an underscored sort of way.

Lestrade doesn’t know when he started to refer to John in the past tense, but he does know this much. John is breaking, somewhere, lost, and he has been for a long time. Harry wants to pull him back together.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to betas/strippers Sophie (happy birthday!), Liz and Jasmine. 
> 
> Who knows? Maybe I'll put up two chapters today rather than one because I'm feeling ambitious and also I don't want to cook and it's 8 a.m. right now why am I even up I've been awake since 5 even though it's summer goddammit dogs next door
> 
> Also, Harry Watson? In my headcanon, she's Catherine Tate. And who the fuck is Harry's friend Maurice the Gossip-Mongerer of St. Bart's, even I don't know (my friend named his laptop Maurice. Mine's named Cody. They're having a gay relationship but keepin' it under wraps.) (My phone's name is Athena, but sometimes I misspell it as Anthea. Whether or not this is on purpose, you can decide for yourselves.)


	6. Between the motion and the act

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sally Donovan is sisterly, Sherlock ruins everything and nothing at all (as he is wont to do, but don't worry, you can't break what has already been broken so thoroughly), Sebastian Moran is almost-mentioned but it is never followed up on, Molly just wants to go back to sleep _goddammit_ , hospital bathrooms are notoriously inconvenient for nervous breakdowns, Mycroft repeats himself in spite of the Holmes' loathing of redundancy, and there are physical symptoms to confirm how disadvantageous caring is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. More on that in the end-note, if you care. You probably don't. 
> 
> In fairness to myself, this was a bitch to write at the time, and even more of a bitch to edit because I'm _never_ happy with anything I write, and now I'm questioning the ending to the fic and my sanity and my future and my existence and—
> 
> Enough on that. Both temazepam and ketamine have been used as date rape drugs in the United States, with temazepam being the second most common benzodiazapine used for this ungodly purpose. Ketamine and GHB have been known to go undetected with many basic drug tests. (Ladies, if you taste something slightly salty in your drinks, speak up, because GHB is a salt-based compound.) My Internet history now makes me seem like I'm a serial date rapist. If I get arrested, don't expect this fic to be updated. 
> 
> Let me say once and for all: **I am not a date rapist, nor will I ever become one, regardless of what my browser history may lead you to believe.**
> 
> Triggers? Triggers. Probably for allusions to rape/non-con—no, not probably. _Definitely_. The reaction Molly has is based off the reaction of a person I know to a similar situation. I asked you in Chapter 3 to interpret Moriarty's actions as you felt necessary. I leave it ambiguous, but do know: whatever it was that you think happened, it was sexually-based in nature. Not necessarily rape, if you don't choose to interpret as such. I wrote her like a victim of sexual assault, and I will continue to do so in the context of this fic.
> 
> After that lovely prelude, I guess all I can say is...enjoy...? Oh! And kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions and reviews are always welcome! Over and out.

**_“The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind.” François de la Rochefoucauld_ **  
  


By the time Donovan arrives at St. Bart’s exactly 22 minutes and 32 seconds after receiving the call from Molly Hooper’s attending physician, she has fallen asleep again. This is not the same sort of sleep she had been in for the past 12 hours. She had only been conscious for thirty seconds or so, and she was not cognizant of the world around her.

Now, she tosses and turns and cries out in her sleep, and Sally Donovan wants to hold and her and tell her it will be okay, but she doesn’t know how.

“Should I wake her?” She asks the doctor, an older gentleman who seems positively disturbed by the turn of events in the past 48 hours.

He is experienced; he’s seen a lot in his years working the A&E and in the trauma center, but he’s met Molly before, so this is different. It was brief, and she had offered to bring him coffee, and never learned her name because there was no need to make friends with the sweet, shy and awkward girl who spent all her days cutting open corpses. He doesn’t respond to the question. That’s all right. He’s had a long day.

“Doctor McCarthy, do you think I should wake her?” She repeats, because it’s all she can do.

He snaps back into focus with a pitiful sigh. “Yes, I can’t imagine these nightmares are doing much for her recuperation. The thrashing will probably only get more violent. She could tear her stitches.”

“What were her injuries in total?”

“I already told the other detective.”

“The other detective?” Fear strikes her. There has been no other detective.

“Yes, a tall man. He had a badge. Blonde, plain suit with a black tie, I think. I think he had blue eyes, but I could be wrong. Quiet man, low voice. Asked to see her medical record and asked after her. Said he needed to write up the incident report and didn’t want to leave loose ends.”

“What was his name? Do you remember?”

“Something Irish. Donahue, I think. Donagh? Dougherty? Something like that. Didn’t have an Irish accent, though.”

There were no detectives that had any semblance of that description. She’s calling Lestrade; he does not pick up (Harry? Sherlock? Mycroft?). She leaves an urgent message, swallows her fear, and turns back to the haggard doctor.

“Her injuries, then?”

“Knife wound to the left clavicle—deepest at entry point around two centimeters from the base of the collarbone, dragged down a bit and it gets shallower for about four more centimeters and then it stops. Some bruising on the left side of the face—I assume her attacker is left-handed, then, judging by the injuries. Bruising on her thighs, knees and all around her ribcage and throat. We are waiting on results from the rape kit, but don’t keep your hopes up. There were lacerations on her arms, from nails—most probably defensive. We’ve collected skin cells for the labs. The blade he used was a scalpel and he clearly was experienced; there was no hesitation and the wounds were cleanly cut in fine lines.” He looks back at her. “She was unconscious for some time, but it’s unknown what he did while she was aware. The sedative used was a ketamine cocktail of sorts, with temazepam mixed in. Ketamine can used as a date rape drug, though I’ve only ever seen it ingested orally; temazepam is a benzodiazepine caused some of the respiratory depression and somnolence, as it’s used as a short-acting insomnia medication, but _never_ in this high of a dosage. Never seen the two combined, which caused both the delayed reaction. It’s quite powerful, though, and affects memory. To inject it directly into the bloodstream could have quite a few side effects. It’s too potent to take intravenously. Most rapists aren’t murderers, though they’re equally as low on the pecking order in my mind.

“There was also this.” He pulls out a photograph of a wound just above the diaphragm. He shakes his head. “It’s one thing for someone to…someone to do something like this, but it’s another thing altogether for a monster to sign his work like it’s some damn piece of art.”

She stares at the picture with a small “JM” emblazoned on pale flesh, so plainly obvious, that yes, Moriarty thinks he’s some sort of fucking _artist_. He’s an artist, and he made a woman’s body his canvas and that makes her feel dizzy and nauseous to think about. _John Watson was a good man and I’m sure his girlfriend was lovely,_ she thinks, _but Molly, sweet, innocent Molly, sometimes-shy-and-awkward-and-a-little-boring Molly, he signed her like she was a goddamn masterpiece ready to be sold to the highest bidder after he was finished with his destruction._

“May I see her?” Sally asks, finally, glancing into the darkened room. No family. No visitors. No flowers. She is completely alone and dwarfed by the machinery. There’s an oxygen mask around her slowly bruising face and tubes snaking along her arms, and the air is only punctuated by the sound of air being forced down her lungs and the steady _beep! Beep! Beep!_ to remind the doctors that yes, she is still breathing; Jim Moriarty has not won completely. She’s so pale and delicate, almost fragile, with a halo of mousy brown hair under the glow of technology.

The doctor nods, looking drawn, and puts an unwelcome hand on Sally’s shoulder in a futile attempt to comfort her. She does not need comforting. This is her job. She doesn’t need to be comforted. She shouldn’t need it at all, but the fact that he seems to think she does is disconcerting.

Donovan enters the room, and she’s still asleep. The sergeant is wavering between familiarity and professionalism, and she considers waking her (though her nightmares have stalled and given her a temporary reprieve—they’ll be back; they’ll always come back, she knows), but lets her sleep for a few more moments. Molly seems to know, subconsciously, that she’s being watched, and, ever the gracious hostess, awakens. Her eyes open slowly and heavily at first, not able to focus on anything in particular, and then everything, and she’s shaking and crying out (somewhere in the string of words, Sally thinks she hears her scream out _“Sherlock!”_ shrilly, but she can’t be sure). By the time the nurses arrive to give her a sedative, she’s gasping into Sally’s shirt. The convulsions have stopped; now she’s crying, and there’s no medicine for that, and so they stalk off dejectedly without a second glance.

The ketamine’s effects have almost wholly worn off by now, but she _had_ overdosed on barbiturates. When the poor girl retches into a nearby bin, Sally forces herself to think that it was a side effect from the drugs, but she knows better. She’s seen this before. Molly is trying to expel all the evil out of her system, but she can’t, because it’s a part of her now, every breach and desecration, as though it’s built into the foundation of a house. She’s damaged now, vandalized, and her body acknowledges and rejects it, but cannot rectify the vitiation that has already been done. Sally wants to fix her too, but knows she cannot.

Sally does not ask; Molly does not answer.

_Too much, too much_ , they both think simultaneously.

So they sit in the dark, with Molly weeping into Sally Donovan’s blouse and holding her hand, even though they’re barely acquaintances at best. When Donovan reaches around to hold her though, she shies away.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” She doesn’t finish the statement. Molly knows, but she is blank.

“I started it, you know,” she whispers, pointedly avoiding Sally’s eyes. Sally and Molly now, not Sergeant Donovan and Dr. Hooper now, because one must be on first-name terms when caring for the traumatized.

“Started what? This wasn’t your fault, Molly. What he did was sick; it’s not your fault.”

“No, I _did_. I was the one who asked him on the first date. We had lunch in the canteen; we talked, and he just seemed so _sweet_ and so _nice_ and everything I wanted. I didn’t fancy myself in _love_ with him, or anything, but I thought, ‘finally, a nice guy who doesn’t want body parts or to beat corpses and then insult me, someone Mum would be happy to meet and would be fun to go to weddings with’. It’s not like there were sparks or any of that crap you hear. But I didn’t go out with him to try to make Sherlock jealous. That bit popped up in my head a little bit later, but then I tried to force him out of his mind, because look—I had something good for myself now, I didn’t need him.” She beats her head with her hands, crying, and Sally takes both hands, if only to keep her from hurting herself.

“I was just so goddamn stupid. Then Sherlock says that he’s gay, after our second date, and he had kissed me goodbye and I didn’t think, ‘ _yes, this might be nice, for once in my life, a sweet bloke who won’t use me like all the others, because he’s just as shy and awkward as I am, and besides, he likes cats’_. But then Sherlock had to say it. And then that’s all I saw. I saw all the goddamn signs that he, of course, had planted, and I tried to ignore it. Who cares if he’s gay? He cares about me, I thought. Someone cared about _me_. I thought about living in denial for a while. A few more weeks, a few months or years, I didn’t care. Just to pretend that I was happy was enough.”

Now she balls up her fists in Sally’s hands and she can feel the rage and humiliation pouring out of her. The fingernails dig into the back of her wrist, but Sally doesn’t mention it.

“Of course he wasn’t interested in me. I don’t care if he’s gay. Straight or gay, he wouldn’t have been interested me because he was using me to get to goddamn Sherlock Holmes. Why does he always have to ruin _everything_?”

Realization hits Sally in an uncomfortably quick way. “You…Did you…Do you love him, then?”

“Sherlock?” She laughs curtly, self-deprecatingly. “I thought I did, maybe, once. But maybe I was in love with the idea of him, too. To me, he seemed like everything that I wasn’t. He was gorgeous and successful and intelligent and so uncaring. Others didn’t affect him. He wasn’t like me. He was interesting. Is interesting. I tripped all over myself trying to impress him.” She sighs and shakes her head. “Do you think he’s impressed yet?” She mutters, and Sally feels like punching something. This isn’t right, not right at all.

“So you know then. That he’s alive.”

“Know? I _helped_ him. You need a body to fake your death. And now look what I’ve done. Look what the bastard has done to me.” Sometime during her story, she had stopped the violent crying. Now she just has tears but not the wracking sobs that had accompanied them. “And I’d do it again, because maybe I was and still am just the tiniest bit in love. Maybe I’m just tiny. I’m so small I fade away. But I was brave, you know.”

“I know, sweetie,” Sally bites her lip; she hates the saccharine falseness that syrups and coats her words. She wants to escape. This is _too much too soon too close too everything_. “You’re very brave. You’re amazing.”

“I’m not, though. Stop it. I-I’m not a child.” She flinches again when Sally tries to brush the hair off her damp cheeks. “No, I was brave. I didn’t scream; I did as I was told even though he wanted me to cry. I didn’t scream until he stabbed me, but that wasn’t because I was afraid of him. I thought he was going to kill me. And I was _okay_ with that, because I’m afraid of the monsters in this world, but I’m not afraid of him. I’m afraid of dying, but not of Jim, because Jim’s just a man. Everything that’s frightening—we’ve always thought that they weren’t human, superhuman, but he’s _normal_. So I’m not afraid of him, but I’m afraid of what he represents. Symbolizes. His potentialities. I understand death. I work with corpses. Funny thing, that. The woman who works with the dead is afraid of dying, but not of Death himself. I screamed because it hurt. Not because I was afraid. I wasn’t afraid.”

“Of course you weren’t.”

“Stop _patronizing_ me! Please. P-please.” She tries to be strong, but she’s weakening. Her voice cracks as she begs, and Sally hates that she has forced such a reaction. Exhaustion and serene patience shadow Molly’s eyes; the dark humor has faded in favor of fatigue. She closes them, but continues speaking. “He couldn’t control me, and he tried, but I didn’t scream. I…I didn’t scream when he wanted me to. I wanted to be…to be brave, for John and Sherlock and Greg and you and whoever else might have been listening, just in case. I didn’t want you to worry about me. You know me. I always cock it up somehow, everything, and I thought that you all must be…so busy, trying to find John, and I didn’t want to be a…distraction.”

“You’ve never been a distraction. I told you, Molly. You’ve always counted. Don’t make me repeat myself.” Sherlock says from the doorway. He hopes it would keep her awake. He wants to question her; there’s so much _data_ to be gleaned from someone like Molly (intelligent enough not to mix emotion into her memories, surely).

Her eyes flutter open. He can’t be here. He _can’t_ ; it’s not safe. But she cannot sustain consciousness, and she drops off again. Sally watches her, hovering over her like a mother, stroking her head softly. She places the oxygen mask back on her bruised nose and swollen mouth. In that moment, she is not an esteemed member of Scotland Yard, Sergeant Sally Donovan; instead, she’s Just Big-Sister Sally, the pinnacle of maternal serenity, who had done her damnedest to find two small children kidnapped because someone wanted to play a game, even if, at the time, she thought Sherlock was the puzzle master the whole time, who had tried to protect John Watson the very first day he met Sherlock Holmes, because she knew he would get hurt, somehow, and now look what’s happened to him.  

A minute goes by and no one moves. Then Sally stands up, pats Molly’s hand with her own, and then uses those gentle hands to push Sherlock out of the room (not without closing the door softly on her way out) and then, she is no longer sisterly, but livid.

“How long were you there?” She demands.

“How long were you there _for_. Or, _for_ how long were you there? It needs a preposition. Come now, Sally, this is primary school grammar. It doesn’t suit a woman of your…position to mince up the English language, does it?”

“For God’s sake, Sherlock Holmes, you tell me, _now_. Christ, do you have an idea what you’ve done to that girl?”

“I wasn’t aware I’ve done anything at all. I had no part in Jim Moriarty’s most recent escapades. In fact, I’ve been doing my _very_ best to bring them to a neat halt.” Sarcasm, dripping on every word of his last sentence. Any remorse she had felt for her part in propagating the conspiracy against him was fading fast.

“I see you’re not making any friends here, Sherlock.” The brother. His appearance from seemingly nowhere startles Sally, but Lestrade is rounding the corner, and she doesn’t have _time_ for this, because he’s here now, that creepy brother of Sherlock’s, the one who didn’t protect his only family. Sally would never forgive him for that. He nods tersely at Sally, regarding her as though she were a bug who simply needed a requisite acknowledgement for her existence, and then would no longer be a nuisance. “Though that is to be expected. You and Sergeant Donovan were never particularly close. I’ve spoken with Ms Hooper’s doctor, who was more than happy to provide me with the medical report after proper prompting. But I would not advise on waking the young lady, Sherlock, she’s had a bit of a shock.”

“Fragility. It must be so humiliating.” Sherlock almost spits the words out.

“Says the man who threw himself off a building.” Sally spits back. This is a pissing contest, and she doesn’t back down, even if she probably can’t win.

But Sherlock doesn’t respond like she expects him to, and Mycroft doesn’t even try to defend him (another tally mark against him, she supposes). She almost regrets saying it, but she knows it needed to be said. To remind everyone, and herself, that although Sherlock acts, with all his superiority and intelligence, that he’s inhuman, _super_ human, he is breakable, and vulnerable, and his vulnerabilities have hurt more than just himself.

And then, the text.

_And let the fun begin. xoxo Jim P.S. Johnny misses you (he talks in his sleep)._

__There’s an attachment, a very, _very_  short video, ( _too short, really, because it's been so long since he's heard or seen John in anything other than one of Mycroft's hastily and illegally acquired CCTV pictures_ ) and Sherlock stares at it with his hand hovering over the phone’s screen, but he doesn’t have control over the device.

The human body has 206 bones in its skeleton, and they all appear to be collapsing within John and barely supporting him.

No, it is not his skeleton that is keeping him upright, but chains attached to a crossbeam in the roof. High ceiling. Warehouse or garage. Windows are covered wooden boards and black tarpaper. Blood. Lots of blood. Broken man hanging like Jesus fucking Christ from his cross. A tall man, blond, eye color is light, but mostly indistinct from this distance, rough and tanned with movements hinting at a one-time refined life. No one speaks, unless you count shouts strangled by pain to be speech, and Sherlock doesn’t.

Still, it’s nice to hear John’s voice.

No, it really isn’t. Not like this. This isn’t right.

Sally had started shouting at him as soon as he began ignoring her in favor of the phone, but then she cut herself off at the sight of his suddenly ashen face. Bit not good; no, not good at all.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft begins carefully. Nothing he does is cautious, only careful and meticulous and planned. “Sherlock, what is that?”

The detective simply slides his phone back into his jacket pocket and stares directly into his brother’s face. “Excuse me. I will be back in a moment.”

Mycroft watches as he stalks off, following his movements. Sherlock never tells Mycroft where he’s going or what he’s doing. He never announces his movements or excuses himself. Something is wrong and he’s trying to keep Mycroft from worrying, because Mycroft has men follow Sherlock when something is wrong and Sherlock wants, _needs_ , privacy and secrecy. Weighing his options carefully in his mind, as he always does, he chooses his brother’s safety is much more important than his desire for privacy. Sherlock does not always know what’s best for himself, and Mycroft has betrayed him, exposed him to attack, helped destroy him before. He will not do so again.

The phone weighs heavily in his pocket. In his experience as a detective, he has never felt a visceral emotional reaction to any form of torture, mutilation, corpse decomposition or violence of any kind. Emotions have always been tidily dissected away from his consciousness long ago. Too easily and too often, they created unnecessary entanglements and slowed him down and _distracted_ him from the facts. The facts are all he has, he realizes, as he locks the door to the men’s room and slides to the ground in front of the toilet, shaking.

He considers breaking the phone, but an overwhelming wave of nausea forces him to divert his attention.

Suddenly, a wholly uninvited Mycroft is in the room, standing behind him, looking wholly unsympathetic. Sherlock _had_ locked the door, but even the strongest deadbolt can’t hold back the British government, much less the simple lock on a loo door.

“This is not productive or healthy, Sherlock,” He begins, ignoring Sherlock’s warning glare from beneath sweat-slick curls. “I told you then and I’ll repeat it now. _Caring is not an advantage_. It never has been and it never will be.”

“Don’t repeat yourself, Mycroft; it just makes you seem all the triter. You’re becoming stale; besides, repetition is a waste of oxygen.” The bile seeps into the words, bitter and irritated, but weak, _so very weak_.

“It’s unlike you to react this way.”

“No, I suppose you _wouldn’t_ understand, would you? You’ve never had a friend before. You’ve had colleagues, and those colleagues have sometimes died, sometimes violently, but you’ve never had a _friend_. Tell me, are you jealous?”

“I’m looking at you sick in front of a toilet at St. Bart’s. Tell me truly, Sherlock, what is there for me to be jealous of? All you’ve done is proven my theory true.”

His eyes narrow and he slumps against the side of the stall, still wan, sweating and quivering. “I’ve done nothing of the sort.”

“Really? Because from what I’ve seen, for one ordinary, insignificant, _average_ person, you’ve faked your own death, relapsed into your drug habits and been reduced to _this_ ,” he says, gesturing to Sherlock’s crumpled, bilious form. “No, Sherlock, I am not envious of you in the slightest.”

“I didn’t say you were jealous of me. You’re jealous of John, are you?”

“Yes, I am jealous of the man currently being beaten by a criminal in an unknown location with little help of rescue. You’ve got me there, Sherlock.” He takes a deep breath. This is raising his blood pressure more than preparations for the upcoming Olympics. “You’ve been wrong before, but your deductions have rarely been blatant misinterpretations of the true facts.”

Sherlock stands steadily to his feet. “I don’t need you to protect me and care for me if I’ve got him. I’m not dependent on you. You’ve never been made redundant.” 

“So that’s what he is to you, then? A displacer? A replacement for me?”

“He never left me. He was always there, and I ignored him, and he stayed regardless.” Sherlock says quietly. “You didn’t do that. Everyone always leaves, but he didn’t. He isn’t a replacement. He filled the void you left behind and then some, and he is more than you will ever be and you hate that, don’t you? Because you can’t have that _or_ be that. You know that one day, you’re going to die and you’ll have _nothing_ but mission files and shadowy organizations and those don’t come to funerals. At least he visited my gravestone. At least I had someone to grieve for me.”

His brother doesn’t respond (he thinks about asking him, “ _what about you, Brother? You wouldn’t grieve me?”_ but he doesn’t because that’s sentimental drivel and something he’s learned to repress and besides, he knows the answer, anyway). He just stands with his eyes closed and his shoulders resting informally against the tiles, hands clasped almost-protectively in front of him as though he _couldn’t_ care less.

“He didn’t have the chance to leave you, Sherlock. You left him.” Mycroft says quietly, hoping to make Sherlock see _sense_ , for once, because it seems he was never born with something everyone else seemed to have.

Sherlock visibly tenses, but ignores his brother’s statement, as always. “You don’t like to lose what you think is yours, do you, Mycroft? Always been a bit selfish that way.”

“Have you thought about—” Mycroft begins after a short silence.

“Probably.”

“Have you thought about the fact that he hasn’t sent you any clues or puzzles to solve? There has been no communication but that text you just received, and that didn’t prompt you into immediate action, so whatever it was is meant to shock and cripple you, not to impel you to move forward and continue your absurd little ‘game’ with Mr. Moriarty.”

"Your point is?”

“You know perfectly well what my point is. His plan isn’t to get you to come and play with him, but destroy you. He’s tired of playing. He wants to win. And he will win, because look what this one move has done to you. His first was to take John, and this is his second attack because you stayed on the defensive and that _bores_ him. And when John bores him, he’ll play his final card and tear John Watson apart and take you down with your only friend; it will be simple. You’ve made it so easy for him. Honestly, I thought you were a bit more intelligent than that; _really_ , must you make things so effortless for the man? This is Adler all over again. For all that hate for repetition, you seem to be repeating yourself quite a lot. You said it yourself, love is a dangerous disadvantage; sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side. It is a weakness, one that we both swore we’d never possess—and now look at you. You’re going to let this… _mistake_ destroy you. Consider your cards carefully, Sherlock. I’d hate to see that you’ve bet everything only for you to lose it all after the first round.”

“Yes, you _would_. You loathe gambling, in spite of your profession. Besides, what do you care? This has nothing to do with you. This is none of your business.”

“Always have to get the last word in, don’t you? Very well then. Tread lightly, if you’ll take any advice at all. John is a strong man, but perhaps not as strong as we all think.”

“I think he’s stronger than we know.”

“You’ve been wrong before.”

“I’m not wrong about this.” Sherlock looks at the ground. “I’ll get him back, Mycroft. Not because this is a case or because I’ll be bored without him. I’ll get him back because he’s mine and no one takes what’s mine.”

“Aforementioned selfishness of that statement aside, I think he’d object to being discussed as though he’s an object.”

“He is the most brilliant object I’ve ever come into contact with.” _And if he breaks, I break too_. “I can’t lose him. Not after all this. There’s too much data still. Too much I don’t understand, that needs to be organized, collated, investigated. I can’t leave it unfinished. He is my greatest work.”

Now, Mycroft’s face is carefully blank, a canvas, once more. His poker face has returned, a politician’s mask that can be easily swapped out for a dead-eyed smile or a motivating glare. Nothing. As he stands in front of the locked exit, preparing to see himself out, he turns once more and looks at his brother (the shaking has calmed, but his color has not yet returned).

“The answer is yes.” He says softly.

“What?”

“You asked me, that night, if I ever wondered if there was something wrong with us. The answer is yes. I wonder all the time. Sometimes, I think I don’t have to wonder, because I know for a fact that it’s true. We’re broken. But everyone is broken, Sherlock, our defects are just more apparent. John’s weakness was physical, and extremely visible, and he was just as alienated from the world as we are now, and perhaps that’s what drew you to him.

“There is something most certainly wrong with us, Sherlock, but that doesn’t mean that we are inherently wrong.” He opens the door. “If it concerns you, then it has everything to do with me and it is my business. I have failed you several times in the past, and I regret that, but I do care for you. You’re the only brother I have. There’s something to be said for brotherly love, even if it sometimes comes in the form of incredible dislike. I worry about you, constantly.”

“I never asked for your concern.”

“No, that’s true. But it is in the nature of brothers to worry.” He is out the door and looks back grimly. “I have lost you once to Mr. Moriarty. I’ll not lose you again. You’re absolutely right in one respect, though you’re absolutely wrong in almost everything else. So know this: I’ll not sacrifice your life for the life of John Watson. You are my brother. _Mine_. And you’re right. I don’t like to lose what’s mine. I am selfish that way, but as humans, we are extraordinary in our capacity for greed.”

“I’d never thought I’d hear yourself admit you’re greedy.”

“Wrong again, brother.” He sighs, his default expression when it comes to Sherlock, accompanied with a grim smile. “I told you then, and I've told you today, and I will tell you again, Sherlock. I am not quite so averse to repetition. All lives—”

“Don’t say it.”

“All lives end.”

_No, not him. Not his_. Sherlock thinks it, but cannot say it. His words settle in his throat like bile and cyanide.

“All hearts are broken. Caring—”

“ _Mycroft_.” This is what begging sounds like from a Holmes. This is supplication.

“Caring is not an advantage.” He turns back around and Sherlock is trembling slightly again, falling back against the stall door. “I’ve no doubt that we _will_ find him, Sherlock, but I can’t guarantee you’ll like what you find when we do.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. I know it's only been three days. Sorry anyway. I had a lot to do, such as, but not limited to: packing, having a nervous breakdown, buying a gift card, sleeping, Tumbling (Tumblring?), questioning my existence, questioning my _sanity_ , enjoying a smoothie, crying into said smoothie, splitting my toe open and needing emergency care from my mommy, watching Monty Python, not editing my fic, trying not to think about college, being self-pitying, saying goodbye to an ex-boyfriend-who-is-still-my-friend-so-it-should-be-awkward-but-it-isn't-I-just-know-I'll-miss-him, feeling sorry for myself, and eating chicken tenders. Busy, I know. 
> 
> Also I had to deal with my pseudo-redneck Tea Party Republican dad, who asked me for the 15,000th time why I don't have a boyfriend ( _I mean **honestly** it's been, what, a year and a half since you and Mac broke up you **need** a boyfriend _ ). And my Argentine stepmom agreeing with him in Spanish and broken English while my four-year-old half-brother threw a phone at my head. Again.
> 
> Will probably have the next part up within the next two days. We're in the home stretch and I haven't actually finished the epilogue yet. Meep. 
> 
> Thanks as always to betas Sophie, Liz and Jasmine. (I'll miss you when I have to leave you behind, but you will always be nearby through the wonder of the Interblagtubeweb).


	7. Between the desire and the spasm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which reality is tested and is concluded to be altogether unreal, angels and demons are actually one and the same (neither exists), John's mother sings him a lullaby without being there, Sebastian returns to waxing poetic to the extreme and comes to a startling conclusion, Mrs Hudson actually would quite rather to just do her laundry in peace, Lestrade and Donovan have a falling out, addictions wreak destruction (as they are wont to do), and T.S. Eliot and F. Scott Fitzgerald are quoted, among others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The return of the gratuitous literary reference! I regret nothing. 
> 
> Yes, so kudos to F. Scott Fitzgerald (esp. for his works "This Side of Paradise" and "The Beautiful and the Damned", the former of which is directly quoted in the story. Due to the format and style, I did not cite) and T.S. Eliot (esp. for "The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men", both of which are partially quoted).
> 
> TW: Drugs and drug abuse, some child abuse, _very, very, very hardly suggested, possibly inferred_ non-con, suicidal ideation, literature, laundry. Violence. And, as always, extensive use of expletives.
> 
> This chapter has not been very rigorously beta'd because my betas and I have been busy. It's gone through a very, very rough beta'ing, mostly for grammar and spelling issues, so if it seems a little excessive, that's why. I'm just an impatient person, and besides, I'm leaving for college in less than 48 hours now, so it seemed prudent to update when I have time. 
> 
> Please comment and review and kudo and bookmark and thank you to those who have already done so!

**“ _There is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else.” –Ernest Hemingway_**   
  


The sixth hit is the one that breaks him. He has been whipped, burned, branded, beaten; his bones have been broken, scars delved into unwilling flesh. But the physicality of torture is something he has been trained for; when he speaks, he intentionally slurs his words on the off chance that someone, anyone, _anyone_ might recognize that they have not yet broken him completely. That's a lie, but it's a lie that keeps him going. It's not much, but it is all he has, so he savors it.

He has grown used to the sound of footsteps and the smell of cheap cigarettes, but slowly, he notices that his eyes no longer burn and he can detect small changes in light, now. In hushed, excited whispers, John unburdens his new secret to Michael, who is a blurred wraith against a backdrop of varying shades of grey. The specters that haunt the corners of his mind now have indistinct forms in reality—a tall man, a rectangular room of concrete and steel, a shorter, thinner man and the pinprick of light from the cigarette as it touches his skin.

Unbeknownst to the doctor, his only friend in this captivity smiles at the disclosure, but the smile is not a pleasant one. John has hope, not a lot, but just _enough_ , and hope is always _so_ much fun to annihilate.

So they withhold the drugs and watch in sick delight as the doctor’s mind rebels against his body—well, no. Jim is delighted, but Sebastian feels nothing. He never feels anything at all. They have been dosing Watson nearly two times what is safe, because roulette is much more fun with someone else’s life. (This isn’t roulette; it’s poker. Jim loves to gamble, and, with a gun to his head, John has put all in, but he has the losing hand.)

When he realizes his body is opposing and launching a civil war against his mind and vice versa, this is when his captors have won. Hope dissipates. His arms shake, his mind spins, he sweats and cries in his sleep, vomits nothing—his cracked body rejects life, only craves drugs, and he knows he’s dependent on them no matter how hard he tries to resist. He doesn’t suffer silently anymore and remain stoic in the face of this internal torture—he calls out to them, pleading them for anything, _something_ ; his pride has fled, he has not a modicum of dignity, and he is an animal begging for scraps just to survive.

Hours pass. The man’s fever is spiking; he’s evaporating, drowning, but he’s nowhere near water save for the sweat running down his body and rehydrating the dried, stale blood on the ground (they’ve waterboarded him, yes, of course, because it’s all good fun, but this is a different kind of drowning, the kind that can kill a man in the air). He’s conscious but delirious, and his body bucks against the restraints chaining him to a pipe above him; he needs water or he’ll die of dehydration and there’s no fun in that _I can’t breathe I’m dying I’m dying I’ve always been dying_ _but now I’ll suffocate, I’ll suffocate and then I’ll die I’ll just burn away and there will be nothing left of me_.

When he hears-smells-distinguishes the man called Seb and his stoplight of a cigarette, John is hanging on to the precipice of consciousness; he shows up at the last second and just in time, really, because there’s nothing entertaining about torturing a cataleptic man. Seb holds him down with bony knees on the injured shoulder (by now, he knows just where the ugly war wound is and how to cause maximum discomfort with minimum effort), he forces water down his throat and laughs when he splutters through his broken, swollen jaw and bloodied nose. And then John hears Michael run in with the drugs and John no longer struggles. He needs this. He’s always needed this. All his past addictions were leading up to _this_ ; _this_ has been what he’s always craved, and everything else was just a fucking substitute. Euphoria washes over him and calms him, and the shadow of intoxication passes over his eyes with dilated pupils, but soon the euphoria gives way to horror.

This is what they’ve been waiting for. John had been safe in his own mind (when he was awake, at least). He has held the key to a rational mind during daytime, but now he is conscious and powerless against the deluge of nightmares tearing him apart.

Jim dashes away all remnants of Michael ( _one of the all-powerful archangels the one who protected God’s soldiers in the war against Satan’s followers, in Hebrew means “Who is like God”_ ) from his mannerisms, knowing John, in his delirium, can’t connect his familiar, manic laugh with Michael, his nursing, gentle archangel. Angels are so simple, so very, very dull, trite and common. Demons are everywhere, but Jim is _the_ Lord of Darkness, and Beelzebub; he is Loki, Norse god of mischief, Thánatos, Greek god of death, and Mephistopheles, appearing _ex nihilo_ bringing discord with him with poisonous gambles, and when John willingly allows the needle to slip into his vein and does not protest or struggle against the effects of the narcotic, he signs over his soul to the Devil himself.

The broken man is shaking. He’s a fugitive from sanity, and the only thing that pierces the armor of his druggéd veil is that laugh, that _fucking impossible_ laugh, from a spider ( _not a man at all_ ) who only lives inside John’s mind. Then there are his screams, twisting their way into his attentions, and the door, with its padlock and all the deadbolts that held back nightmares in daytime, bursts open. In the cascade of everything he’s tried to lie about, repress, deny, ignore and forget, there is Sherlock, and now his own words:

_“Just fucking kill me, oh God, oh God, fuck, fuck, just kill me, God, please, God I can’t—I can’t do this, please—”_

“This is just glorious,” Jim says to Sebastian, who is standing behind the small camera; the sniper has always been only a piece of living furniture. Jim kneels next to the convulsing man, almost reverentially, as though he’s Mary Magdalene over Christ’s crucified body. The doctor and the torturer have become one, with Jim cradling John carefully, kissing the man’s bleeding temple. The kiss lingers a bit too long, on purpose, and Jim savors the smell of iron and copper and blood and death hanging in the room before speaking again. “Look at the poor animal; look how adorable he looks when he’s frightened, _God_ , it’s the most beautiful goddamn thing I’ve seen in ages. Fucking gorgeous, isn’t it, Sebby? What do you think—oh, quiet, dear heart, my good, sweet doctor, I’m _talking_.”

He smacks him, and now, John is quietly sobbing, all reason fled (a whimperer, Lestrade would say. Yes, he’d had that look about him—a hard man to break, but once broken, not one to want to distract or interfere with the lives of the rational. He’d much prefer to stay back, entrap himself within insanity, and let the world pass him by in spite of his own fears).  Now John, a heap of broken images, is wrapped up in his own bête noires and his drugs, in violent daylight, rocking back (shaking, convulsing, falling apart) and forth in Jim’s thin, spidery arms, and Jim is whispering in his ear, one finger hooked in the doctor’s frayed belt loop, demanding attention, desirous and craving further control and domination, influencing his plethora of nightmares, showing him fear in handfuls of dust, stopping only to allow his own body to be wracked by violently deranged and increasingly unhinged laughter.

_This is better than blood on my hands or sex or watching Sherlock run about in my mazes._ This was, and is, the psychopath’s dream, _non compos mentis_ and unrestrained _._

For the first time in any sort of memory, fiction or otherwise, Jim is truly happy, and as much as that terrifies Sebastian, he is happy too.

 

When the drugs begin their quick work, they’re stronger than they had been, and he knows he’s dead, or might as well be.

He’s in his childhood home in Surrey, and he’s a child and an adult at once. But he’s so pleased to see something familiar finally, and it’s so distinct and vivid, not shadowy and vague images slowly getting clearer as his vision returns; though he’s not flying, he has that not-quite-falling feeling in his stomach (he does not yet realize it’s anxiety from the knowledge that his mind is beginning its slow descent into madness, even if this hell is only a shade of things to come).

For him, this hasn’t been home for years, though sometimes, he still calls it that. Suddenly, he sees and feels his veins swelling, and he climbs the stairs slower than he remembers (he’s a child now, do not forget), and someone is screaming, a man, _Watson come quickly, Captain! Captain! Oh Jesus, oh fuck, God, medic! Somebody get a medic! Please help, someone, anyone, medic!_ John is rooted to the spot now, from a fear he has not yet connected to any one of the many cues, and his father runs past—runs _through_ —him, as though he’s not there because he’s _not_. John has long been invisible in his memories, perhaps because he was. He’s always been a little bit invisible, all his life. Even so, as his father rushes past him/through him/in front of him, he doesn’t feel the well-known swell of rejection and disdain. As his father rushes by, he’s filled with a sense reminiscent honey on toast at night, and then an itchy wool jumper pressed into his cheek.

No longer is he on the stairs. Now he’s hiding in his favorite spot, that spot in his mother’s closet with her pointed shoes digging into his back and her frilly, soft, floaty clothes brushing the top of his duck-blond hair and his rounded cheeks, and he is safe, if only for a moment. There is hope again, fragile and featherlike, just outside of his grasp, but in sight. He peers out, _Harry can’t find me if I’m in here_ , he thinks, and he sees his mother for the first time since he was young. She looks as she does when he tries his hardest to remember her, before she lost her hair; she is beautiful now, so he tries not to think about what comes later.

John has her face, her personality, but his father’s hair, the kind she loved to stroke so gently when he was afraid or hurt or just because. He feels fear welling in his bones and empathy shooting through his too-small body, more than what he can handle or hold or what can fit in such a tiny little thing (his heart has always been too big for someone so small, his mother had told him once) and his doctor’s instincts want to take care of her before the cancer tears her apart, because he _knows_ what’s coming, but he’s a statue.

There is his father, much like Harry, and he is kind when sober, kind enough to make them forget about the times when he’s not and he apologizes for bruises, broken plates and holes in the wall with the most delicious caramels. And John—no, not John, because then he was still Jack, but not for long (Jack-Jack or Jacky, sometimes, his father would call him affectionately, because John is named after his grandfather Jack Watson and his mother’s grandfather Hamish MacDonwald and he is proud of the history he carries with him in his veins). And at that time, Jack loves his parents, even if he’s sometimes so very afraid.

But he knows this day. This isn’t a hallucination, it’s a flashback; this is the day their father and takes Jack away with him, he leaves and leaves John, someone new and strange and older, there behind him in the blue-grey house in Surrey with the red door. He will never be called Jack, or Jack-Jack, or Jacky or anything of the sort again, and when he catches himself writing it at the top of the paper in school, he hates himself for it, and he hates it when people still call him Jack, because that’s not what he’s _called_ anymore. Jack is gone. Now it is Johnny. As he watches from picture frames and wallpaper, Jack becomes Johnny and then, eventually, just-John, and Jack can never return.

His father is drunk, but Jack (still Jack, he’s still young, still a child, he still loves with the incandescence of innocence that hasn’t been stolen away in the night inside his father’s hastily packed, worn leather suitcase that smells of aftershave and whiskey) knows it’ll be all right in the morning because he’ll find sweets in his lunchbox or his trouser pockets and he and his father and sister will steal small, secret smiles that taste of sugar and butterscotch. It will always be all right in the morning, so Jacky doesn’t worry but _John_ does, because he knows.

His mother knows it’s coming, and his father, stumbling and swaying as he swoops down, sloppily kisses her goodbye, but instead of leaving like John remembers, he stays. His mother becomes jaundiced and pale ( _too fast, too fast, we need more time, we have to have more time, I need you_ ); she’s losing her long hair in clumps and miles, falling apart like a porcelain doll, and now John is his father, holding his mother as she snaps apart. And he’s sobbing, screaming her name, with big hands and a child’s voice, _mummy! Mummy! Don’t leave me! You can’t! Mummy!_ And his father looks at Johnny, hazy with alcohol, no longer the beloved, simple accountant who could not afford medicine for his lovely wife’s leukemia. Charlie Watson grabs his tiny son by his shoulders, shakes him, bellowing, “you’ve killed her, Jacky, you’ve killed her! You couldn’t fucking save your mother! You couldn’t save the whole of Afghanistan; you couldn’t save your sister from herself; you couldn’t even fucking save your best friend. He died because you couldn’t save him. You killed Mummy, you made me leave you, you made Harry drink, you murdered Sherlock, some _fucking precious_ doctor you are, you disgust me, _you repel me_ , and now look what you’ve done!”

That is not what happened in John’s reality, the memory of his youth.

This is not what happened in most people’s reality, but John’s current reality is not most people’s reality, and he is trapped.

Charlie Watson would leave his family and get a new one (though he would leave that one behind too eventually, and that fact always made John just a _little_ bit pleased even though it’s horrible), and he is killed in a barfight in Edinburgh while John is in Afghanistan and he doesn’t find out until he’s returned with a bullet in his shoulder and a psychosomatic limp and a shell hardened by years of the knowledge of a parent’s abandonment.

Abandonment. Yes, he knows abandonment, probably better than most. Abandonment is your big sister cracking under pressure a week after your mother dies, making you the only adult in the family at just barely 18, and it comes in the form of a bottle of expensive scotch thrown at your head after you’ve half-carried, half-dragged her drunken mess of a body back to her flat at four in the morning. Abandonment is your mother dying, even though you _begged_ her not to leave you alone, _because you’re going to be a doctor, Mum, and you’re going to be proud of me, so you_ can’t _die, Mummy, you_ can’t. Abandonment is leaving Mary alone just for two seconds to get your gun but by the time you get there, it’s too late; she’s dead, gone, left you alone with psychopaths in your flat on Weighhouse Street. Abandonment is your best friend (your only friend, really, because let’s be realistic—who else do you really have to go back to?) jumping off a goddamn seven-story building while telling you that everything he did was a lie, and you had to _watch_ and _observe_ , and you always think you must have missed something, or maybe everything, because you’re an idiot ( _practically everyone is_ ).

That’s not to say he’s never abandoned anyone. He abandoned Mary to grab the gun; he abandoned Sherlock many times ( _you machine_ ); he abandoned Harry and Mum and civilization to escape to Afghanistan, and then he went and abandoned his men and his patients to be invalided back home. _Home_. Home is nothing anymore.

His mind is a plethora of sounds and colors and movement, but he isn’t afraid anymore. He is numb. Waiting for it to be over, he watches as all his fears bubble up behind, inside him, harmonizing with the laugh of James Moriarty, filling his blood and bones, becoming him and taking his body, and then there is only emptiness and absence and the taste of blood and Afghan desert dust; he feels innocent again like a child, victimized and forsaken, a shell discarded and he is rubbish, detritus tied together with his skin, flotsam and jetsam desperately seeking shorelines and sinking underneath a savage, freezing and greedy sea but _why is the ocean laughing at him, and why does it sound like Sherlock?_

He’s been screaming it without realizing it, but it doesn’t make him regret it in the slightest. He means it, every word, every time, out loud, so Seb and Michael and whoever in the whole goddamn world can hear it, because he’s just so _alone_ and so _tired._

_“Please God,_ _let me die_. _”_

 

_Yes,_ Jim thinks, realigning his clothing, as he prepares the file for delivery, giving only a cursory glance to the now-unconscious doctor at his feet. _Yes, this could be very nice._

Sebastian simply watches with sharp eyes, observing the final descent of his employer, and realizes that this is the Fall of Man, that they’ve already taken the apple and they are burning Eden to the ground, and he awaits God’s wrath.

_There are no eyes here in this valley of dying stars, in this hollow valley, this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms_ , Sebastian thinks—he doesn’t look like he’d be one for poeticism, with his height and cigarettes and scars and calloused hands, but he waxes lyrical more often than Jim would like. Perhaps it is something ingrained in every fiber of his being after years of country club schooling and _proper, civilized_ _folk._

They are stars. That’s all they are. They are stars, but they are dying, fading, falling apart internally but Sebastian keeps an aura of calm. Jim can’t know. Not yet. No, he’s too far gone to see the inevitable, but Sebastian sees it. He’s only waiting for what happens next. Whatever Jim puts into effect will just kill Sebastian a little bit quicker. No one will watch them as they implode; they’ll only see the explosions and the ashen remnants of something that had been gorgeous. Yes, they’ll be famous afterward, but now, _now_ , they are anonymous and they are glorious (he doesn’t want to die, he admits, even if he knows he must; all he wants is to read to Jim just one more time because even though he doesn’t want to say it, he loves his life, and he loves that Jim has control over him, and he loves the feeling of absolute nothingness when his shot takes the life of another man, and he loves that Jim loves only himself and monstrosity, and he loves so much and so little, but he will die tonight, he is sure of it, but goddammit, Jim _must_ survive, because he is infinite, even in their cursed entropy of fire, madness and lead. Jim will be all right. Jim will be fine. Sebastian will make sure of it, even if he dies tonight, words unsaid, for the sake of a man who could never love him).

Only heroes and lovers become etched in the sky, and they are both and neither of those, but wouldn’t it be fantastic? Stars are chaos and hydrogen, born of explosions, just like Jim, and they can become anything with a little influence, _just like Jim_ , and stars are constantly burning out of control millions of light-years away, past kingdoms and domains of unknown galaxies, nebulous and violent and noiseless in the vacuum of space—even in spite of distance and years, they appear every night, just the same, and they become a part of history. And they are dead by the time they reach our eyes, so far away, so untouchable and lovely and vast. Look how the sailors navigate by starlight. Look how the little children point out shapes. Look how the light of London pollutes the sky, tries to drown the stars out, but they’re still waiting, _waiting_ for so many millennia, and they still appear so long after they’ve been extinguished.

Tonight they will walk for the last time on the cracked graves of the damned, because devils like them cannot become constellations; there was never any hope for them. They are not heroes or lovers or even human. They will never become constellations. They are scarecrows, man-like figures with masks of humanity and only the barest hints of purpose. They are hollow.

 

~oOo~

 

Sherlock knows he has nothing to go off of, and that was always Jim’s plan. As much as he hates to admit it, Mycroft was right. Jim never wanted Sherlock to come out and play, just to watch. This is revenge. Jim is disintegrating but he’ll destroy Sherlock first. His destruction will ripple out in tidal waves—Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Harry Watson, Molly Hooper, the whole of Scotland Yard, the whole of London and maybe the innocent world will be submerged.

He is not the recipient of the text, at least, not specifically. Jim has planned a widespread torture for Sherlock—John couldn’t care less; he doesn’t know. Jim sends a part of the encryption code to each member of the Sky1 news-team, the same news channel for which Jennifer Wilson had been a correspondent. They don’t know what it is, strings of numbers and letters in new-age languages, looking at it, and some of it has been deleted, but Mycroft has resources for that (of course he does; Mycroft has resources for everything), and they salvage most of the code.

It’s juvenile. It’s so easy; he’s _regressing,_ degenerating, devolving, changing to have a simpler modus operandi. Even genius cannot sustain a full psychotic break, nor can one be controlled. This plan has been forming for years and years, but this is the linchpin, the flash point—St. Bart’s three years ago had been a dress rehearsal, but this is D-Day.

The code leads them to a video message from Jim. Unlike him to be so personal, but then again, the man they’re playing with is a shade of a man formerly known as Jim Moriarty. He sits with all the poise and grace he’d had before, but only Sherlock and Mycroft see the little tremors in his eyes betraying a far deeper psychosis than previously thought.

Ah. His words are so trite and scripted, unimaginative, with Hollywood details, and he knows it—his words are not important, not yet. The table in the background is what matters. Semtex, in boxes, in barrels, lying out in the open. How _boring_. A distraction not even worthy of Sherlock’s effort, because there’s so much more at stake than what could be destroyed with 50 stone of explosive.  

It’s a penthouse apartment. That’s not right. That’s not where John is because someone would have heard John scream. Sherlock has heard John scream and now he can’t stop hearing it. A secondary location. Someone has to be staying with John—needs to be watching over him ( _John gets lonely sometimes,_ Sherlock recalls. _He’s a creature of needs. He needs to interact with other people. People need other people to thrive, but I don’t need other people, I just need John_.)

John has never told Sherlock about Charlie Watson, or Afghanistan, or leukemia, or caramels, even though Sherlock knows most of it. Even though he knows and he _hates_ repetition, he thinks about how much he wants John to tell him about it, because Sherlock knows, but he doesn’t _know_. He’s never heard it in John’s colorful voice, the one that could be heard even in his writing; Sherlock has never detailed and stored away the adjectives he uses to describe his experiences, and that leaves a huge space of emptiness in his mind palace, and Sherlock much prefers clutter to barrenness.

“Sherlock,” Lestrade says suddenly, breaking Sherlock out of his thoughts. “Are you even paying attention?”

“Why should I? It’s a distraction. Quiet, I’m thinking.” Sherlock waves Lestrade off, who then folds his arms. “I’ve upset you, haven’t I?”

“Brilliant,” Anderson says from nowhere and everywhere. “Yes, I see why you two are having so much fun, you and the madman. You make a pretty couple. I’m sure you’ll be _very_ happy together.” Sherlock doesn’t look up, but he does close his eyes tightly, because John once said that to him, too, and he doesn’t want or know how to think of John right now.

“Fuck off, Richard,” Donovan says. She stopped fucking him soon after the incident with the cabbie, after Sherlock saw that they were having an affair, and since then it’s been “Richard”, not “Rick” or “Rich” (“Dick” sometimes gets thrown in the mix, but it’s not quite a nickname, though it’s definitely a diminutive).  

Lestrade can’t take this. He steps up. “Sherlock, do you have any idea how many explosives are in those crates?” Sherlock gives him a withering look. “Of course you do. You remember the tower in Yorkshire. That was only eight of those packets. Each of those crates probably holds, what, 50, 60?”

“Closer to 60 on average. Volume of the crates is—”

“How much, Sherlock?”

“Approximately 325 kilograms worth of explosives total, from what is visible.”

“Christ.” Lestrade pushes his hair back with his hand and leans his elbows on his desk.

“He won’t detonate.” Sherlock says simply. “It’s a waste of our time. We should focus on finding John.”

“You can’t know that he won’t detonate.” Another withering look. “For God’s sake, Sherlock, the man is obviously even farther gone than last we saw him.”

“Why should he bother blowing anything up at all?”

“Because he’s bored? Because he likes killing people? Because he wants to get the fuck out of London in the confusion? I don’t know. You’re the fucking expert on the man.”

“He blew up the tower in Yorkshire because the old woman could identify him potentially. He outfitted those people with bombs because he wanted to get my attention and for me to play his game. He’s a consulting criminal, Lestrade, a businessman.”

“So maybe some terrorist group wants him to bomb the fuck out of the UK. Maybe he’s shipping it around the world. There are plenty of people who would have good use for those explosives.”

“If that’s the case, which it’s not, then it’s none of your concern. It’s not your division to track down international criminals. Hand the case over to Interpol and go back to help me find John. That’s the game here; Jim’s already played bomber before.”

“Sherlock, this is unacceptable. John is just one man. We have to weigh our options. Those bombs could kill thousands and cripple the government for years. I don’t want to wake up one day and find out that I could have stopped another version of the Tube bombings. I have to make…look, John is my friend too, and I hate—”

The detective folds his arms. “Are you giving up on him?”

“N-no, that’s _not_ what I said, or even implied. We just have to…there’s been no sign of him for almost four days now, and you have to consider that he’s…”

“Finish your damn sentences, Lestrade. You sound like a child.”

“I’m just saying that we can put his case on hold for now while we deal with this. We’ll go straight back to him, I promise. And we won’t stop looking. It’s not that, because we know Moriarty took John, so maybe stopping the bombing will bring us closer to him. Solving the puzzles stops him and maybe…If this were anyone else but John, you’d do the same thing.”

“But it is John.”

“Yeah, but, _if_ it were—”

“But it isn’t anybody else. It’s John.”

“Yes, I _know_ that, Sherlock. Jesus, let me finish.”

“No. I won’t let you do this. He’s what matters here. Not bombs. Not the government or thousands of other people. Just John. He’s all that’s ever mattered in this, can’t you see, or are you so fucking blind that he’s got you fooled too?” Sherlock is frustrated, and he’s aching for a cigarette. “He’s done it before, too. Fool me once, shame on you but fool me twice, shame on me, isn’t that it? He’s just tricking you again, and again, and again, don’t you _see_?”

Mycroft, now, sighs. “I see. I’ll have to make the call, then.”

“It’s not your call to make.” Sherlock snaps at him. “And I’ll have you know that I have proof that he’s alive.”

“What?” Lestrade leans forward. “What is it? Why haven’t you told us? That’s withholding evidence, Sherlock; you _can’t_ do that. I’ve told you all this before.” Lestrade is desperate and confused, but Sherlock is tapping away at his phone. “Come on, Sherlock, focus, pay attention. Don’t just ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you.” He shows the screen to Lestrade and presses the play button. “I got this at St. Bart’s a day and a half ago when I went to try to speak to Molly.” 

“That’s…that’s… _Jesus_ , did they brand him?” Lestrade’s eyes grow wide, and Sally seems to be trying to physically get away from the sound of John’s strangled and muted shouts. He’d tried to avoid screaming, and bite back pain and terror. He’d failed.

“A magpie.” Sherlock whispers. “I had the image enhanced. I looked through frame-by-frame. They’ve been brutal, but they’ve been careful. They want to draw it out as long as possible. This is an experiment. It’s a study in how long the human body can withstand something like this.”

Mycroft doesn’t flinch at the sound of whip against flesh or cracking bone. He keeps his eyes resolutely on Sherlock’s face. Sherlock doesn’t look anywhere in particular.

“He’s still alive.” He says. “We have to find him.”

“And if he’s not?” comes the response from Mycroft, speaking now for the first time since the message. “This was a day and a half ago, this message. Consider the probability of anyone, even a trained man such as John, being able to withstand torture of that caliber for four days. We’ve discussed this. Perhaps this is Moriarty moving on. If John has died, then Moriarty needs something new to victimize, and what’s better than the whole of London?”

“You can’t even suggest something like that.” _How can you_?

“I just did. You don’t want to acknowledge the incredibly high likelihood of that outcome. You choose to ignore it, but it’s quite nearly impossible for anyone to survive continued torture. I do not speak others’ words or quote statistics on that _fact_.”

Lestrade chooses to ignore the implications of that statement. Sherlock chooses to ignore the statement altogether.

“Detective Inspector, I suggest our forces work together. This threat has moved on past familial concern. I assume I don’t need to have the Home Secretary order you to divert your resources to the newest concern. Cooperation is the most plausible course of action.”

“I-I…cooperate? Your forces?”

“I occupy a minor position in the British government, Detective Inspector, you know that. In spite of my lower status, I still have considerable access to resources that perhaps you may not be privy to. It would be in both of our best interests to work in tandem as best as possible.”

“This is absurd.” Suddenly, Sherlock is out the door, grabbing his coat.

"Where do you think you’re going?” Lestrade calls out after him. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“What does it even matter? Moriarty knows I’m alive and his empire is in tatters. I’ve no reason to hide.”

“Sherlock!”

“You obviously have decided John is a lost cause. That is where you and I differ.”

“I don’t—I didn’t...But where are you possibly going?”

“To prove you wrong!” He’s out the door, and Lestrade again feels like the concerned mother of a rebellious teenager. He looks back at Mycroft, whose face is ice, as always.

“It’s not safe out there.” Lestrade begins warningly. “Should we be worried?”

“I always worry. But there are priorities to consider. My brother is an adult. He makes his own choices. I cannot force him to do anything he does not wish to do.”

“You—don’t you feel _anything_?” Donovan cries out, suddenly. Naturally, both Lestrade and Holmes have forgotten about her presence, but she didn’t have time to be upset about that. “That man is your _brother_ and you’re letting him run straight into the lion’s den and you’re talking about priorities? He’s already died once. This man wants to kill him, and he almost succeeded, and now Sherlock’s not even thinking clearly. I’ve never seen him act like this, and yet you’re even considering for a moment letting him go off on his own? Fuck, no wonder he hates you; you don’t even care about him—maybe you’re the reason he’s a freak. God knows he doesn’t _choose_ to be like that. He’s got nothing and—”

“ _Sergeant Donovan!_ ” Lestrade shouts—how unlike him. He never shouts. He sounds strained and frustrated, but raising his voice never happens. And he never calls her Sergeant Donovan, and it shocks her, like when her mother used to call her by her full name when she was truly in trouble.

She doesn’t care. “But, _Greg,_ Sherlock is _—_ ”

“Get out. I don’t need you here right now. I have 325 kilos of Semtex somewhere in London right now, in the hands of a homicidal lunatic, and I can’t have you cocking it up! Go after Sherlock if you want. I don’t care. Just get out.”

Donovan looks stunned first, but then straightens up and nods. “Yes, sir.” She steps out of the office, closing the door as Lestrade begins frantically making phone calls. She’s never disobeyed Lestrade; she’s never been anything but the best second-in-command she could be. She sees some of the nearby Yarders staring at her but trying their best not too. It makes sense, really. Lestrade’s voice had been loud enough for the entire floor to hear on a slow day, but thankfully, she supposed, the entire floor was a flurry of energy at the time of the outburst.

“The fuck are you staring at, Hopkins? Don’t you have work to do?” She barks, and they instantly go back to their work. _Sherlock_ , she thinks, as she has nothing else to do. There’s nothing else to be done. She bolts out of the bullpen, down the stairs because _who the fuck has time for elevators when there’s a man dying_? She’s dialing Sherlock’s number. No response.

_Think. Think, think, think. Ignore the knowledge that Sherlock would make a snide remark right now. He’s not in your head. Or he is. Where would he go?_

__She hails a cab.  
  


~oOo~

             
Sherlock has stormed out of the building with nowhere to go. Four days ago, he had escaped from Mycroft’s safehouse with little difficulty after monitoring the police radio, and headed straight to 6C Weighhouse Street. He did not have a contingency plan. For once in his life, thinking was not his priority, just movement and _JohnJohnJohn_.  

His body is crying out against his prolonged sleep deprivation, but he just feels cold. As he slides into the backseat of the cab (after carefully eying the cabbie and determining that he was not a threat), he steeples his fingers underneath his chin. He wants a cigarette.

“Where to, sir?” The cabbie asks him awkwardly, after almost thirty seconds. He opens his eyes.

“221 Baker Street, as quickly as possible. Take Regent Street.”

 

He doesn’t have a key into the flat, much less the building, but that is not an issue. Most things are not.

Still, out of respect for Mrs Hudson, he knocks, and it feels so foreign to him. At once, he wonders if she even still lives there (of course she does), or if everything he had once owned has been binned or given away (hopefully not, some of that was toxic).

There is no response. He knocks once more. Still nothing. Instead of ringing the bell, he picks the lock. The door swings open, and the hall smells of tea and air freshener (she uses lavender-scented spray now, rather than that horribly suffocating vanilla fragrance). Music is playing, some old 60s ballad that Sherlock would probably know if he were normal, or had not deleted it to add space for John.

She’s folding laundry near the back of the flat. He can hear her humming along (must not have heard him knock; she’s getting older and he hates to consider it) and wonders if, he were to go to her now, he would kill her due to heart attack or stroke. It’s possible, he admits, but unlikely. And he likes tea when he returns home, especially after a long trip.

As he considers the least-frightening course of action, he decides that her believing that she is to be the victim of a daylight robbery would most likely be the least shocking. At least she’d be ready for surprise. After all, she had proven her strength and her disdain for unwelcome strangers when American agents had entered the flat. And she didn’t even mind so much once he’d offered to replace the dented bin.

He makes no effort to keep quiet. She makes a startled little hop ( _does she still have that mace I used before? That would be rather unpleasant.),_ but then regains her composure in spite of a frightened aura about her, and sets the laundry down. She’s prepared herself to see some sort of chiseled burglar; _surely_ Sherlock can’t be worse than whoever it is she’s imagining. She picks up one of her late husband’s old cricket bats and brandishes it with all the ferocity of—well, of the brave and kind Mrs Martha Hudson, really—and timidly hugs the wall as she goes toward the kitchen.

The kettle whistles; she screams and he grimaces. This may be end poorly for him yet, but he’d rather have her very upset with him than scared witless. _Human emotion is so fickle sometimes_ , he thinks, as he watches the cricket bat and the floral dress turn the corner.

In spite of all his careful strategizing, she still screams, and she doesn’t drop the bat. She looks faint at the sight of him and he glides over to her, grabbing her shoulders.

“Sherlock Holmes, _where have you been_?” She manages once he’s put her safely in the chair. As of yet, there have been no signs of cardiac arrhythmia; he is satisfied that she will not suffer a sudden heart attack at his reappearance. Recalling Lestrade’s reaction, he considers the idea that he may have multiple mother figures in his life (three in total, if you count Mycroft, which he does, unfortunately).

After she has regained some color and seems much more alert, he says, rather frankly, “I’m alive, Mrs Hudson,” smiling his best almost-smile, but she just glares at him.  

“I can very well see _that_ , but do you have any idea how much grief you’ve put all of us through? Goodness, goodness,” she stands up, fussing about, as is her way. He watches her, confused. “Well, we can’t have you home without getting a bit of food in you, now can we? Look at you, Sherlock, you’re skin and bones, you might as well have been six feet under this entire time.”

“You’re not going to ask me why?” Everyone else had. She is not making sense. “Or how? Or—”

“Heavens, no, why on Earth would I want to know something like as dreadful as that at a time like this? I’m supposed to be upset with you. Now, what would you like?”

“I’m not hungry. I’m very busy. I need…I need to work.” He mutters, with the initial adrenaline-fueled gleam of reunion wearing off, he now goes back to his familiar sulk.

“Sherlock Holmes, you show up out of the blue after three years; the _least_ you could do is eat some biscuits or a sandwich. A little food won’t kill you.”

“But—”

“It won’t kill John either.” This time, her voice is softer, gentler. “That is what it’s about, isn’t it? John?”

“Yes.” He folds his hands.

“You’re going to find him. I know you will. Things will go back to the way they used to be, and for a while, I won’t even object to finding horrid things in the refrigerator.” She takes his hands into her own. “You have always been one of the people I know I could depend on completely.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares at his hands in hers. “Some…tea would be lovely, Mrs Hudson.”

She pats his cheek. “Don’t you worry, it won’t be but a moment. I remember just how you take it.”

“And a couple of biscuits too, if you’ve got some.”

She putters about the kitchen, humming softly and trying not to let her hands shake too much as she pours the water into the kettle.

“Who told you about John?” He asks after a moment of blessed silence. “Mycroft hasn’t left my side for a moment, and Lestrade’s been busy. Molly is—”

“Goodness, dear, that poor girl; I’m sure I don’t even know the half of it. It was that Sally Donovan; she told me in person. She wanted to make sure I was safe and I was protecting myself, but I just told her that if James Moriarty wanted to harm me, there was no amount of preparation or protection that would be able to stop him.”

“Donovan?”

“I know that _you_ didn’t much like her, but she really is a lovely girl when you’re not going about antagonizing her. She comes round for tea now and again. Not often, but she always brings the nicest pastries when she does drop by. It isn’t fair, you know.”

“What?” Fairness was something he had little understanding of and even less interest in, seeing as, in his experience, the world is often unjust, though it is rather generous with whom it dispenses injustices to.

“Do you know anything about her, Sherlock? Have you ever even tried to speak to her?”

He looks incredulous. “What could I possibly want with her?”

“You’re right, what was I thinking? The average Yarder is beneath you, is that it?” She waves it off with a huff. “She had two little sisters, twins, if I recall. One was killed in an accident when Sergeant Donovan was seventeen—drunk driving, I believe, the poor little girl was only thirteen years old. They never found the man. That’s what made her want to join the force. Anyway, recently, the other sister was diagnosed with some sort of disease, multiple sclerosis, if I’m not mistaken. I’m not sure how far along the disease is. Poor dear hasn’t been around much lately, but she’s just been working so hard. Such awful business, so tragic.

“And then there’s that Detective Inspector Lestrade, do you know what your death did to him? I mean, regardless of his career, the poor man looked as though his face was about to turn the same color as his hair. And he’s such a nice man, it’s too bad about his marriage, really, but it’s like you say, he’s married to his work too. He would go to visit your grave every Saturday morning that he could, sometimes he would go there to think after a particularly difficult case, and I would see him there, and goodness, Sherlock—and _John_ , oh, it nearly broke my heart to see him sometimes, and I was thankful for that dear Mary Morstan because for once in a long time, he looked genuinely happy, and now he’s gone and—”

He had not expected her to begin crying, but then, he never could predict things like this as well as he seemed to make out. Motives and murders and crimes, he understands; he knows how to _make_ someone cry, or smile or any number of things, but he doesn’t _understand_ them. When she buries her head into his coat, for the second time in the four days since his return, a crying woman has baffled him into silence.

What might have been a defining human moment for Sherlock Holmes is interrupted by the sound of his phone. He pales, and she notices, squeezes his hand and stands up, grabbing a key from a drawer near the archway.

“I’ve left everything as it was, as best as I could. Heaven knows I had to empty out the icebox, and some of the experiments and clutter and paper, John helped me pack away in 221C, but for the most part, it has just been me and your furniture all this time.” She presses the key into his hand and he nods. Unwilling to have any of the material gleaned from this text—whatever it is has frightened Sherlock almost invisibly, but it’s there—she wants no part of it. She hates it when negativity puts a damper on a happy occasion, but then, the exact nature of this reunion is questionable.

He stalks up the seventeen steps, gripping the phone so hard he’s wondering if it can crack under pressure (it won’t) and then wondering if that would, perhaps, be better (it wouldn’t).

He folds himself down into his old chair, perching on top of it, and the flat is full of dust and is recognizable (almost exactly the same, except for the cleanliness, which is simply unnerving), but it has none of the intimacy that it once had. The place where he had once felt safe and comfortable no longer feels protected; its gate has been down for some time and the walls have been breached. _This is not right. This is not right at all, and I don’t know why—no, yes, I do. John’s not here._

He presses the button, the video plays, and he is glad he didn’t eat a biscuit downstairs.

_"Hello, darling,”_ Jim says over the speakers on the phone, looking directly into the camera. _“So I see you’ve been abandoned by your shining knights, have you? They’re such fools, but you’re not. You aren’t so easily distracted. Pity, really. I was so hoping to watch you run about, desperate for my attention. You didn’t really think that I’d play the same game as last time, did you? I hate repeating myself. It’s so_ boring _, honestly, I can’t stand to see people do it. Why would anyone want to live a life doing the same thing over and over again? I swear, they should just all kill themselves, it’s a lot less trouble on their part—what’s that? Yes, this_ does _seem vaguely familiar to me. Maybe I’m a bit of a hypocrite myself, but isn’t everyone a little bit two-faced? Isn’t everyone a little bit of a fraud?_  
 __

_Anyway, you didn’t respond to my last message, so I thought I’d change it up a bit to get your attention. This is a little different. I think you’ll like it. I’m quite enjoying myself. Go ahead, Sebby, show him what we’ve accomplished.”_

The camera turns and they open the door, and John is writhing on the floor, with fresh burns and marks on his body. On his chest, two inches underneath the scarred bullet hole, Jim’s initials have been carved messily (some sort of serrated blade; fine, sharp blades would be more efficient but the cuts are too clean and would heal too neatly). He’s crying out, and Sherlock can see the table in the foreground, with the empty vial and hypodermic needle lying used on its surface. The camera focuses on John, screaming and shouting incoherently—hardly even words, really, just sounds—and Jim begins to speak again.  
 __

_"He had been so quiet for so long, I thought I might bring in something to make him feel better. We were very worried about him, Seb and me, you know. Such a quiet boy. Well-trained pet, but he doesn’t speak when you ask him to—not even a bark. Cocaine…that was your drug of choice, wasn’t it? This is a little different. I wonder, has the great Sherlock Holmes ever heard of dimethyltryptamine? DMT for short. Shush, don’t speak, don’t say anything, I don’t mind telling you, honey. The compound was discontinued for use in treating insomnia because of the horrific nightmares it caused, but it’s addictive, so some of the patients began taking it recreationally after lab testing. It got onto the street, and soon, they realized it was hallucinogenic, but it had an extremely high rate of bad trips. And Sebby and I thought, ‘you know, that sounds like fun.’ Not for us, of course, don’t be silly. But for John, maybe. He talks a lot and I just said he was quiet—sometimes I do that; sometimes, I lie and—Sebby, give me the camera, shut him the fuck up for one second,_ please _?”_

The camera shifts hands and Jim continues to speak as Sebastian Moran, a man recognizable to Sherlock Holmes after three years of investigating and slowly tearing apart Moriarty’s empire, begins to kick John as though he’s some sort of goddamn dog. Sherlock is shouting, swearing, at the phone, even though it’s only a recording, and he doesn’t give any concern to the fact that Mrs Hudson, seventeen steps below, can hear every word, and is crying into her freshly cleaned laundry.

_“Thank you, Seb, my God, is that man loud when you’re talking and quiet when you want him to speak. Perhaps he’s not as well trained as we thought. He’s very steadfast, though, Sherlock. Seb tried to convince him that you’re alive, just to give him a bit of hope, but he was so adamantly certain that you were dead and that he hated you with every fiber of his being—we couldn’t even persuade him otherwise. You’re in his nightmares, you know. He’s locked you up in his mind; he hates you so much. I can hardly blame him, too. And he doesn’t even know—he thinks_ I’m _his friend, isn’t that sweet? He doesn’t know it’s me, of course, he thinks I’m one of the angels when I go to him. You should have heard him begging us for the drugs just a little while ago. It was so fucking desperate; it was beautiful. Just adorable. He’s so funny, this little one. Reminds me of a bulldog, the ones with those smashed-in faces. We should smash his face in. What do you think, Seb? Shall we do that some time?”_

Moran nods, seeing as the camera shakes slightly. In the momentary radio silence, Sherlock can hear the chains rattling and John’s anguished shouts ( _no, not shouts, those aren’t shouts, those are creaks. He’s falling apart_ ) and then it cuts him, chills him, and at once, both John Watson and Sherlock Holmes fracture simultaneously.

_“Please God, let me die.”_ He begs (Sherlock has never heard John truly beg for anything before, unless you count the day he pleaded with Sherlock not to jump, but Sherlock has deleted that day as best as he can _—_ and now he’s begging for death with the same words he had used to pray for life, not five years later). Now he’s repeating it, there’s a sort of elegiac rhythm to it. And now Jim is holding _Sherlock’s_ John, cradling him as though he’s a child, whispering to him, kissing his forehead, and John is grasping Jim’s shirt, rocking slightly and quivering. He has succumbed to the fault lines; there are tiny earthquakes within him, and Moriarty is laughing, and then, John goes limp, repeating his hopeless refrain until the very last second, and for a moment, Sherlock thinks John is dead.

But if he were dead, then Jim would laugh some more, and then perhaps fume, because it was over too soon. Instead, Jim only shrugs and pushes John over, stepping on him and over him, and looks straight into the camera, drowning John’s unconscious form out of the shot; Jim is shaking with the final stage of psychosis. He’s barely containing his giggle—what sort of grown man _giggles?_ —and grins.

_“You talk to one of your little homeless birds, Sherlock. You’ll know the one. And you’ll know what to do. It’s time we end this, shouldn’t we? I think this is checkmate. Or, it will be…now.”_ Jim winks, and then, a shot cracks, overwhelming the small camera’s inadequate microphone; a not-entirely unconscious John cries out in pain, and then he’s moaning in pain, and then Jim is laughing hysterically, and he can hear him scream out, _“Is this a bluff or not, Sherlock? What do you think, sweetie? What do you think?”_

The camera shuts off and Sherlock is once more alone with himself in an empty flat that used to be his home.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, crumpled in the chair, and he knows his eyes are still wide; the litany is buzzing about in his head like a trapped wasp, _they shot him they shot him_ and _“please God let me die” he begged them and they gave it to him where was he hurt is he still alive is he bleeding out how long ago was that fuck he’s I thought I can’t no why I don’t why would he do that why would_ —

A knock on the door. Then two more. Insistent, sharp. The doorbell, and then more knocking.

“Freak! I know you’re in there! Open the fucking door!” Sally Donovan. He has no desire to speak to her, but her appearance spurs him into action, and action will lead him closer to John.  

The doorbell again. He hates that doorbell. When he and John move back to 221B (they won’t ever leave, and everything will be good again), he’s going to rip out the fucking doorbell.

He hears Mrs Hudson letting Sally Donovan in, and civility makes way to anger, because that’s an intrusion he neither expects nor desires. She storms up the stairs and stands in the doorway, leering at him.

Sally is surprised to see him so…despondent. She’s seen him bored prior to this and hated every minute of his company then, but this melancholia is unlike what she’s seen before.

So. There’s been another message.

"Let me see it.” She says firmly. His back is to her, so she grabs his shoulder. She doesn’t have time for childishness.

“It’s for me.” His voice is unnaturally stilted (she’s seen pretentiousness too, she doesn’t need to be reminded that he went to Oxford and she did not or that her family could not afford to send her to public school or that she grew up on the East End. She knows). This is not pretentiousness that clips short his words, but pain. Nevertheless, she continues to be firm, because when dealing with a child, you have to be unyielding. John can’t have a tantrum here; he doesn’t have time for tantrums.

“Let me see it, Sherlock. What’s happened? You weren’t like acting this way at the Yard.” He had been angry in Lestrade’s office, not… _this_. She sees the phone in his hands and reaches down and around him to pluck it from his hands. They just fall away from the empty air without protest, blood shaking his heart and careening in his ears. She listens but cannot look—gruesomeness is not something she’s grown used to. At first, every time she saw a body at a scene, she thought of Maddie’s abandoned, crumpled form in a gutter near the Docklands (she still gets it with the bodies of children, but John is not a child, so why does she still get that helpless feeling she’d had when she was merely a uniform keeping spectators at bay or the one she’d had when some bobbies showed up at her childhood home late that night to say her baby sister was dead?)

The sound was enough, and when she hears the gunshot, her face becomes stony and resolute.

“He’s going to kill you,” She says eventually.

“Obvious. He’s already done that once.” He tries to carry snark with his words, but his face settles. “I know.” His voice has dropped its distinctive cynicism, and now it only has an air of finality.

Sherlock is already dying. She sees it in his eyes, _(“he who was living is now dead/ we who were living are now dying/ with a little patience”_ ). This is the slowest suicide she’s ever seen, but it’s her job to protect and serve, to save lives, so she will try to save them both before it’s too late.  
  


~oOo~

 

John is drowning in desperation, but it looks, feels and tastes more like blood. Violence, in the form of twisted memories, wracks his body—small fictions puncture him from all sides, even though the worst of the trip has passed and he’s coming down from the high.

He’s crying quietly, too pitiful for even his captors to look at—they’ve shot him and left him alone because he’s _boring_ in silence without the catalyst of the drugs hitting him full-force. No longer is he begging for death (it’s slowly but surely creeping up on him; he recalls the feeling of helplessness he’d had in Afghanistan as he drowned then as he does now). The concrete floor is slick with his blood as he becomes a corpse, just trembling in a cold sweat and he whispers words to a lullaby he once remembers his mother singing to him. Now he sings it to no one in particular, in a room containing only himself (only himself—barely a man at all, hardly human, not even an animal, questionably alive).

_"You are my sunshine.”_

The bullet had torn through his side and exited cleanly. Unlike the sniper’s bullet he’d taken in Afghanistan, this was a straight shot with neatly made entrance and exit wounds. The entrance: below his ribcage but above the kidneys, cutting past the upper intestine and clipping the stomach, angling upward (the doctor’s own fault, really, Sebastian _had_ been aiming carefully for his hip, which would have been less likely to kill, but at the time of the shot, John’s convulsions added unexpected randomness that could have easily made the shot fatal. Or, at least, more quickly fatal). The exit: through the bottom of the stomach and hitting at least one rib, barely missing the diaphragm and his spinal column as it bursts out of his body and lodges itself into the concrete floor underneath him.  
 __

_"My only sunshine.”_

He tries to perform a sort of bloody cost-benefit analysis on his current situation. He knows that the wound was inflicted to cause maximum pain but keep him alive for as long as possible. He also knows that he needs to put pressure on the wound, get water, keep warm, avoid shock and wait it out for as long as possible. But it would hurt enormously to do anything at all (it already hurt to do nothing; to do _something_ seems unappealing at the very least), and he is tired, and cold, and dying already without the possibility of rescue. He mentally adds “some form of fucking hope” to his shopping list of survival necessities. It seems unlikely.

_“You make me happy when skies are grey.”_

The laugh that had permeated his drugged state had been so familiar, so malicious and so real. He knows that now, and he knows what that means: Moriarty is alive.

There was never any Michael. He had no angels. He’d never had any to begin with (they don’t exist, not even in his wicked imagination).

He does not want to live, does not want to think on what life could have been had he been everything he is not now. He begs for forgiveness to unknown entities, who may or may not exist, and he hears his ragged breaths shudder through the dry, small air ( _liquids and gases conform to the container in which they’re held; they are only as small as volume of their surroundings—your lungs are small, this wasteland is small, your life is small, you are small. The air is not small.)_

The ground is cold beneath his back, but slow blood seeps forward like Hannibal of Carthage and his armies and elephants—he thinks on his past sins and knows no one will pray for him ( _who would? Harry, in an alcohol-laden stupor?_ ), so instead, he offers the whiteness of his bones to atone to forgetfulness. There is no life in them. He knows grief. He has suffered it every day, a new tragedy befalling him whenever hope of respite inches nearer: his mother, and when that sting faded to dull throbbing, the war to make it new again, and then he was shattered by Sherlock’s death, and the old wounds ripped open again, when they killed Mary and now—

_“You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”_

He needs to stay awake and conscious, just for a _little_ longer, holding out for nothing. His body refuses to be forced into anything but submission, and he’s so tired. He’s more exhausted than any other time he can recall. He does not hope to turn again; his body deflated, his lungs exhaling in mad rebellion, but he is so very tired, an ancient sort of weariness, a farewell to arms. So tired.

He can’t do it. It isn’t even worth it. He can see now, at the intersection of the adrenaline/pain overwhelming him and the drugs subsiding completely, and it’s exactly as he’d expected. Dull. Grey. Sturdy and concrete. Resolutely spartan. Plain and easily interchangeable with any other standard-issue storage space. Just like him. That’s what he is. He’s storage.

_You’re monochrome, John Watson, and that’s all you’ll ever be, and now you’re going to die alone, apart, so just stop. Just…stop_.

He can’t help but think of Harry, and Greg, and Molly, Mrs Hudson, of his mother and even his bastard of a father who he can’t really hate at all even if he wanted to, of his father’s second family that was eventually just as abandoned as the first, of the man who stabbed him with a broken beer bottle in an alley near a seedy Edinburgh pub while John was traipsing about in Afghanistan, of men too young to die ignoring his pleas and dying anyway, of a generation grown up to find all gods dead ( _Gods like men, some just eighteen, wasting away stubbornly under his unyielding pressure_ ), all wars fought ( _Afghanistan, a war fought before, just like all wars, just new bodies to line the floors, new futures to break apart_ ), all faiths in man shaken ( _what God is there in the Afghani desert; where was He when he was shot trying to save the life of a boy; where is He now as he dies in this wasteland somewhere in London?_ ); he thinks of goddamn Mycroft Holmes, of the first time he’d met Mary, and Sarah Sawyer at Chinese circuses and in New Zealand, and Annie Wilkes in the park when he was nine years old (his first kiss, entirely by accident and entirely embarrassing), and of Nicole Montgomery when he was sixteen and teenage fantasies gave way to awkward reality.

He thinks of Mike Stamford and being young and excitable and filled with promise at St. Bart’s and how his mother had such hope for him, especially when she’d told John and Harry that she was sick and he’d announced with all the puerile naïveté of a twelve-year-old child that he was going to be a doctor for her  ( _“that’s my little handsome doctor, saving lives”—“not yet, Mum, but someday, and soon I can make you better too.” And she’d just looked at him with fond, sad eyes that he didn’t understand)_. He thought of Baskerville and Henry Knight and Bluebell and minefields, and of tabloid journalism and overly sweet cups of coffee, pink ladies, brothers’ green ladders, a jade pin and tattooed feet, and men in uniform in Afghanistan and a red shirt ( _it’s not red, it just looks that way_ , he tells himself, and he will keep telling himself to try and believe that). He thinks of Sherlock falling, the beautiful and the damned, with arms splayed wide and then falling crumpled on the pavement just beyond his reach, past a web of frantic strangers, a man on a bike with a ringing in his ears (w _hose ears? the bicyclist's ears? Your ears? Is it within me or around me?_ ) He thinks of Sherlock Holmes’ black marble tombstone and considers leaving flowers but that seems too dully plebeian for him, and then he thinks of Bond nights and Cluedo, and then he can’t think of anything at all.

_“Please don’t take my sunshine away.”_

The words die on his lips and he’s not even aware he’s saying them, but they’re oxygen escaping his lungs and entering his lungs and escaping his lungs again in harmony; they’re music, violin strings and the melancholy up-down-up-down of a horsehair bow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't mention the (non-intentional) "shades of grey" comment _or_ the Loki comment. I am Scandinavian! I know my Norse mythology, okay?
> 
> I've never been on drugs. So I kind of wrote it like a dream sequence. A really weird, stupidly lucid dream sequence. Also, as always, I leave it up to your discretion for decisions on the extent of non-con. This is even less suggestive than the previous, with maybe one line hinting at possible sexual assault. I also know nothing about medicine. I don't know if a bullet could make that sort of path. It seemed plausible, given my basic knowledge of human anatomy and...I don't know, physics. And I did some research as to the possible outcomes of that sort of wound. Fatality rates, how quickly a person might die from that. They say that stomach wounds are the worst, you know. That if you're shot in the stomach, it takes the longest to bleed out. That's why historians lol at the fact the British redcoats had the white Xs on their uniforms crossing over their stomachs, like one nasty-ass target. Partyin' it up in the Revolutionary War, biznatches.
> 
> This was a little longer than usual but not as long as Ch. 9 is slated to be, so there's that, I guess. All in all, sans Chapter 10 (the epilogue), the whole thing is 103 pages according to Word, in TNR size 12. The epilogue hasn't been written yet. I should get on that. Also, I'm writing Edgar Allen Poe-inspired prologue stories. I call them Poe-logues, because I'm a dork. 
> 
> Oh. And my Tumblr URL is tinibellbeanie, if anyone is wondering, which you're probably not. I'll shut up now.
> 
> quotes: "a heap of broken images", T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"  
> "There are no eyes here/ in this valley of dying stars/ in this hollow valley/ this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms" T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"  
> "he who was living is now dead/ we who were living are now dying/ with a little patience" T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"  
> "of a generation grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken" F. Scott Fitzgerald, "This Side of Paradise"


	8. Falls the shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a minor character is named and killed with extreme prejudice, the horsemen of the Apocalypse set forth for Judgment Day and deny all righteousness in the face of the Rapture, gratuitous literary allusions are made, villains and heroes alike begin the descent, ABBA makes an appearance and last words are spoken and unspoken and sung in equal parts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Updated warnings: Major character death, even...more...graphic depictions of violence. French. ABBA. And when I say gratuitous literary allusions, I mean _really_ gratuitous. There's a sort-of shift in writing style in one of the separated parts, almost like its own vignette. It's probably a bit pretentiously written, but look at all the fucks I give. I _said_ it was angst and I'll stick to it. I'm serious, you guys. This is when it starts being really not-so-happy. It will not get better, though there will be a possible AU to the ending that I'm working on. TO REINFORCE: THIS FIC HAS MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS FROM HERE ON OUT. IT WILL NOT GET BETTER. **
> 
> Sorry for the bit of the wait. I just moved into college a few days ago, and I needed a few days to acclimate. Haven't started classes yet, so I guess we'll see. 
> 
> Also, basically un-betaed. All of my betas are moving into college at the moment and they can't spare any time to read this over. Any mistakes are mine. I did a lot of research into London neighborhoods and districts, but I can't say that it's been very well Brit-picked. I did my best. 
> 
> **I OWN AND REGRET NOTHING.** Leave comments/reviews if you'd like, they're very much appreciated.

**_“These violent delights have violent ends.” –William Shakespeare,_** **Romeo and Juliet**  
  
The girl, whose hastily scribbled “Vauxhall Arches” had once led Sherlock and John to the lair of the Golem, now lies dead on the stoop of 221 Baker Street. Her name, if Sherlock had ever bothered to ask her, had been Saoirse Sparrow; her Irish-born father left when she was three after battling and succumbing an addiction to crack cocaine and her teenaged mother raised her and her three siblings in their grandparent’s flat (too small for two people, much less seven) in Swindon.

Her mother died of an overdose and Saoirse had sold drugs to support herself—not her family, because they fled as soon as possible, like she had done. It was there that Sherlock met her, on the streets, only an addled, half-conscious waif himself, and there had been animosity between them at first then a mutual understanding and dependence, and then nothing because he was plucked out of that lifestyle and dragged into another. He’d only known her by her handle, Birdie, because it was dangerous for a little girl (she was only sixteen when they first met, after all) to use her real name on the streets.

Mrs. Hudson screams when she finds the body and focuses on the blood, not on the car speeding away. Ordinary people often see the most striking elements of a crime, rather than the most important.

It has only been a few minutes, at most, since John had been shot, and this is the message Moriarty had said he’d send.

He dashes down the stairs, again ignoring all common decency. There’s a crowd murmuring and whispering and Sally is holding Mrs. Hudson, but Sherlock is searching the girl’s corpse and clothes as though she were a rubbish bin containing some accidentally thrown-out valuable.

There. There it is. Her shoes ( _it always comes back to the shoes)_ , too big for her feet, a man’s, smelling of salt, old blood and petrol— _Deptford_ , he’s sure of it. The videos show John in a warehouse, most probably near the docks, and Sally had grown up around there.

"Sally,” he says softly, with gentility that she’s rarely heard from him; when he had used her first name, it had normally been mockingly, but this is sincere. “You grew up near the docks.”

“Yeah. Belvedere.” She looks at him quizzically, because he _knows_  this. “Why?”

“Deptford. He’s in Deptford. Convoy Wharf. John.”

“Wait, how can you be sure that he’s—”

“Her shoes.”

“How can you—?” She stops herself, taking a deep breath, steadying herself. She must be the foundation, strong and constant. Sherlock could never be that, not with unsung emotion and intellect whipping up a storm within him. “W-we don’t have time for this. But he could be anywhere in Deptford. How can you be sure it’s the wharf?”

“Get your car. No time for a cab now.” She stamps her foot but unlocks the car, and there are sirens in the distance. He opens the door and turns back to his weeping landlady. “Mrs. Hudson, stay here. He has no interest in you. I’ll be back.”

“With John?” She asks, sheepish and frightened. He runs up to her and puts his gloved hands on her shoulders, giving them a squeeze. He stares at her a moment with dead eyes, tries his best to be convincing, and nods, turning back into the car. He holds his hands out for the keys.

“You’re not driving. It’s _my_ car.”

“I am driving because I know this city and I know where I’m going far better than you do. I don’t have time to argue with you; now, are you going to make me say please?”

On another day, during another case, in another life, she would have never let this opportunity pass by to knock “boffin” Sherlock Holmes down a peg. But this is neither the time nor the place. She tucks this memory close to her and hands the keys over.

“Thank you.” He says ( _his voice is soft again,_ she thinks. _His walls are tumbling down and I should be so fucking pleased with myself about that, but I’m not, and I don’t even have to ask myself why._ )

For all his recklessness, Sherlock Holmes is a very careful driver. He darts in and out of traffic, of course, because it is necessary, but his motions are precise, almost _elegant_ , with minimal movement but a constant awareness of the world at flux around him. He has Sally fire off one text to Lestrade informing him of their destination, because he knows he cannot take on Moriarty’s men alone, as much as he’d like to, and Sally Donovan is not sufficient backup to tackle the (even disintegrating) empire.

 

 

Mycroft does not like legwork. As a schoolboy, he’d taken up fencing only as a last-resort when his father insisted that he take up a sport, and though he excelled in the activity (he always excels; that is simply the Holmes way), he’d greatly disdained his father for forcing him to participate in something so obviously beneath him. It was always Sherlock who had necessitated activity—his lethargy, as a child, was more dichotomous, almost bipolar, and he switched between animated fascination and irritated lassitude in seconds, it seemed. He took up football and cricket and rugby (the last one, only briefly, because he had always seemed thin, even as a child) and settled on judo for longer than others, but once that was mastered as completely as what had come before, apathy took hold once again. But that is neither here nor there.

He knows, when he receives the same video that Sherlock had gotten, that he will be doing quite a bit of labor regardless of his contempt for it and his vast network of underlings.

They’ve identified the building where the bombs are stored ( _simple, really, the address might as well have been splayed across Mr. Moriarty’s face, and of_ course _it’s a distraction, but he cannot afford to have blunders, not when the British government depends on him to be solid and secure)_.

They are fakes. There were never any bombs in any flat in South Kensington or anywhere else, because he’s played that game before and sequels are never as good as the original. Lestrade looks helpless and walks with a distinct aura of confused incapability, like a kicked puppy, and they both know that Watson is probably dead at this point.

The message appears on his phone as they enter the flat with the red herrings, so he can ascertain the exact extent of their misjudgment. Mycroft immediately sets his assistant upon ascertaining the exact location through use of satellites and time windows.

The wharf had never been an attractive one, and the warehouses there were condemned and largely abandoned. It had become a safe haven for junkies and vagrants, but with the Convoy Wharf redevelopment efforts underway in a frantic push to finish before the Olympics, the transients have been moved out, whisked away in favor of men with hardhats and construction equipment. A few men with large bags and suitcases would have slipped under the radar easily enough—men go in and out of the location everyday, and an unfamiliar face is not unheard of. Gunshots and the general sounds of torture would be overpowered by the sounds of controlled destruction.

Still, Mycroft would have expected Moriarty to select somewhere comfortably tasteful for the locale of his final battle—he didn’t choose it, probably had some peon select it for him and the brute picked the basest and most practical of locations. It seems more and more likely that Jim Moriarty disdains legwork almost as much as Mycroft does.

“What are you calling yourself today?” He asks suddenly to his demure (PA? bodyguard? Secretary?) colleague of unidentifiable occupation, apropos of nothing. Had she not controlled herself, she might have looked slightly surprised. He _never_ asks her name; he always seems to know her alias-of-the-day without having to inquire outright.

“Hm…” She says thoughtfully without looking up. “I think Bellona today, sir.”

Fitting, he thinks, but he doesn’t say so (he never has to; she just knows). Newly-named Bellona has never seen Mycroft Holmes look hopeless, but she, even in her extensive vocabulary punctuated by abbreviations and official names and secret words, does not have a name other than hopeless for the expression she sees on the face of the man behind the British government.

 _There are men are dying every minute_ , she thinks to herself, because it’s her duty to keep everything within her. _Some men are dying faster than others, though._

 

~oOo~

 

This is Armageddon in the modern era. Now ride the horsemen to their Judgment Day, to Ragnarök, to Götterdämmerung, the downfall of the gods, this final solution to this final problem. Hear the hoofbeats from four directions, and on this stage, we set the true Fall (the only Fall).

Come Conquest, apocryphally Pestilence, his steed a righteous and pure white—the healing of plague and disease with the power of invasion; see how he now lies pitiful and broken on the concrete floor, crucified by his own demons, completely and wholly alone on the eve of his greatest sacrifice.

Come Famine, horseman of black, wrapped in a dark coat with a strident, firm gait that belies frailty and gauntness of bone and body. He starves himself and others (of cases, of victims, of cocaine, of money, of food, of anything, _anything_ to keep the boredom at bay, and he thrives on nothingness).

Come War, clothed in red pocketbooks and burgundy ties, with his sword an unassuming umbrella at his side at all times, the ability to create conflict thousands of miles away at a moment’s notice. There he sits, with only a BlackBerry in hand, next to his handful of loyal, if not begrudging, knights, and this is his final drumbeat as he prepares a sortie with the enemy one last time. He cares nothing for collateral because this is chess, and he has always been particularly ruthless in the game. 

Come Death, the palest horseman, with snake eyes of coal ringed with a sickly green and dark hair slicked back, in an exceptionally tailored suit; the seams barely contain his mania, and behind him, Hades, his scythe a sniper’s rifle and a cheap cigarette. They carry with them the key to the gates of Hell and together command the waterways of Acheron and Styx.

Sherlock has arrived at the warehouse and Sebastian watches him through crosshairs on the first floor. Jim is up above, with John ( _“he_ _is truly awful company, if it has to be said—granted, he is unconscious and_ _dying, but_ honestly _, Sebby, you’d think he’d be a little more conversational with his hosts”_ ).

Death and Hades care nothing for the other horsemen because they will learn to adapt and dominate, and they can create and destroy at will; by fire and thunderous gunshot, destroy they shall.

And yet, Death was an angel himself; he is called Samael, and Lucifer was once an angel too, and angels have fought since the dawn of time.

Sherlock, not Orpheus, not Perseus, not Heracles, has crossed the threshold and he cannot look back, and he will soon be staring down Cerberus, and he will see himself reflected in the three heads. _This isn’t right,_ Sebastian thinks, turning to assess his prey once more. This bitch is with him. She can be taken out. But Jim was very specific—no killing until the say-so, but surely he’d make an exception for some interloper, _right_?

He is nothing if not devout (his only religion is Jim Moriarty, just the same way that Sherlock believes in a higher power—himself—and that became John Watson’s religion just the same.)

The shadows in the warehouse corridor cannot contain him. He pounces, knocking Sherlock Holmes to the ground, but he makes certain she’s at least unconscious—and if she’s dead, well, that is her problem, not his. She’s bleeding from the side of the head with unseeing eyes wide open, and he looks a bit dazed, but Sebastian is gone to Jim’s side. There’s no time for tarrying in the hunt.

This is guerilla warfare; this is a war of attrition, but within him, Sebastian can feel the trenches. They have been stagnant for years, no drive, no ambition but to serve out commands like the resolute soldier he is, but there is untamed wildness in him, a darkness that had existed since before he was born. This darkness is inherent, but more visible in most vacant men like Mycroft Holmes and Jim Moriarty and Sebastian Moran and even damned Sherlock Holmes. It’s there, within John Watson, too, but he’s lived a life guided by civilization and society and morals, and he’s been filled to the brim with caring and patience and gentility and love, and he’s driven out the darkness in daylight.

But this is not Afghanistan or 221B Baker Street; this is a dilapidated warehouse in the slums of London, and this too is one of the darker places on the planet. This is where nightmares thrive. This is where nightmares are born.

Sebastian does not know that Sherlock Holmes has taken Sally Donovan’s service weapon. His game typically has claws and teeth, but they’ve never been smarter than him. Sherlock Holmes is another kind of animal altogether.

Sebastian Moran begins to pray, even though he lost his religion long before he saw war up close for the first time. He doesn’t pray for success or forgiveness or anything any god can give him; he prays for the sake of prayer and it shells him the same way the trenches within him are being bombarded constantly ( _boomboomBOOMboomboom BOOMboomboomBOOM—that’s not his heartbeat because he doesn’t have a heartbeat, just violence, saltpetre and explosives reverberating throughout his body)_.

None of the men are religious, but they acknowledge that something biblical has started and it will take something godlike and apocalyptic to end it.   

Jim Moriarty is an angel, in his own way, as much as he’d tried to get John to believe in _Michael_ , the fake archangel, the Good Angel of Death ( _I tricked him, that saintly John Watson, because I burn with hellfire within me and I live on brimstone.)_

No, he is many things, but Jim Moriarty is not the Good Angel of Death.

He is the colossus and colossuses always fall, _always_ , and Sebastian knows that. But not now, no, he can be supported still; he has to be supported. Jim cannot survive ad infinitum, no empire can, but on the fuel born from the bodies and bones of the loyal, the fires of conquest can continue to burn. This is the legendary triumvirate—Moriarty is ambitious Julius Caesar in the prime of power, making Sebastian the steadfast and charming Marc Antony, unwavering and blind, with desires vanishing at the word of his master. Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes are Crassus and Pompey (crass and pompous, so fitting for the men), but together, Caesar and Antony will destroy the triumvirate because they live on power, not money or food or blood or love. Their Rome will flourish, and when they get bored, they’ll conquer all that lies in their path, and then they’ll burn it all to ash and dust; they will rewrite history. Maybe then, they can die heroically and become stars. But Sebastian will be damned if he’ll let his Caesar fall before the Ides of March (he knows it will happen, maybe soon, but not now, never now, because they are young, and strong, and beautiful and thirsty—he’s starving and raving mad, that _bastard_ ).

It is for that reason that when he sees the gun pointed at Jim, Sebastian steps forward and raises his pistol too. (It is instinctual now. _Protect the job. Protect the boss. Protect Jim._ Over and over again, he hears it pounding away in his ears, like the heartbeat he believes he doesn’t have—it _is_ his heartbeat). He is a hunter, and he no longer hunts prey; he’s always preferred hunting predators (the meat, the blood, the bone and the teeth of the innocents compound upon each other and become a part of the predator. Lives run through bloodstreams and boil with digestive juices, roil and turn and disappear in favor of new, fresh meat. When Sebastian kills prey, it means nothing; it’s too easy. But when Sebastian kills another predator, and outwits him or outshoots or outfights, then he’s _won_ something, and he feels it in his flesh, and it makes it all the more delicious a kill.)

He raises his gun, ready to kill the detective, pleased that the doctor has awoken even for a moment and he hopes he is cognizant ( _this will break the fucker, that goddamn doctor, to witness a murder, especially of his best friend, while he’s just sitting there, so goddamn helpless_ ). It’s simple, only three muscles necessary, a deep breath and _bang_! The bullet is released and it slices through air and travels into the belly of the beast. Then another. Double tap, just in case, and the gun falls. Simple, professional. _That’s how it’s done, Seb,_ he recalls his father, the esteemed Army major, Sir Augustus fucking Moran, C.B., telling him at age nine, the first time he’d ever held a gun (it was on a safari in Bangladesh). _Just point and pull the trigger, son. Don’t hesitate. If you hesitate and a tiger is charging at you, it will kill you and tigers don’t show mercy, so you can’t either_.

Sebastian Moran does not miss when he hunts, and to be fair, he didn’t miss anything at all. He didn’t miss, because he didn’t fire (hard to miss what you don’t shoot.)

 _It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but that’s all right. It’s perfect for you, it’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, boss?_ He thinks, grins through bloodied teeth, sways once—the gun had dropped to the ground a millennium ago, he hears the clatter now, a thousand years later. He is uprooted and he falls on his weapon. Another shot, this time, in the shoulder, two inches below the collarbone, slightly to the left, clipping his diaphragm, puncturing the bottom of his left lung and ricocheting off cracked ribs, eventually bouncing back and lodging into the body of the T5 vertebra.    
 __

 __He’s not dead when he hits the ground; he’s alive for forty more seconds of useless and bloody and painful life. He hears Jim screaming. It’s primal, almost, like the sound a newborn baby makes—the howl of a body entering the world and gasping for air and life. Then the scream isn’t a scream at all—it’s a cackle. He sounds like a hyena, or maybe a coyote, and he’s at his side now as life escapes Sebastian in cupfuls.

“Seb! Sebby! Seb! _Sebastian!_ Get up, you stupid fucker! He’s still got a fucking gun! You son of a bitch, move; you’re supposed to protect me! You told me you would watch this city burn with me; you _said_!” Jim dips his hand into Sebastian’s hot blood and brings it to his face, glaring at it and at him (as though it is the blood’s fault Sebastian took a bullet for the ungrateful bastard). “This is all your goddamn fault, Seb. Look what you’ve done. Look at the mess you’ve made.” But he’s grinning, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, with all the brilliance and psychosis and chaos in the world. There he is. There’s Jim Moriarty. Wailing doesn’t suit him.

Sebastian looks up at his employer and tries to speak. It’s a cross between a prayer and an apology and maybe a supplication, recalling his abandoned religion. “For Thine i-is the Kingdom…Thine is…is the…” Jim simply presses a bloodied finger to his lips, leaving a trail.

“Shush, don’t speak, darling. Anything you have to say would be asinine at best.”

Jim reaches underneath the almost-corpse and pulls out Sebastian’s gun. He’s singing softly that ABBA song, _mamma-mia, here I go again, my-my, I could never let you go_ , and Sebastian realizes that this is Jim saying goodbye to him in the only way he knows how to, through cruelty (though, in this case, it’s his own twisted form of mercy). Before Sherlock can register what is happening, Jim shoots Sebastian, drops the gun (no use for it now that he doesn’t have a gunman) and giggles.

This was always the plan. Jim had never planned to survive, but he’d hoped that in his collapse, he would take down everyone around him. _And Sebby wanted to be a star so badly, he made me into a black hole_.

His gravity is failing him, and his plans never seem to come to fruition when they involve the Holmes boys.  

Mycroft is through the door. There is his silent assistant, the goddess of war in regality and elegance and silent disapproval (Bellona: belladonna, bellicosity, _la belle mort_ ).

Lestrade is through the door, too, with Dimmock and Gregson and the rest of them hot on his heels. Sherlock has already taken hold of the gun from Moriarty and has repossessed John’s illegal Browning from the room and hidden it in his coat, leaving Donovan’s pistol on the ground. Mycroft and Lestrade both know John’s gun and its location; they say nothing. It’s not their place to mention it.

Lestrade is reading Moriarty his rights, even though everyone in the room knows that he will be taken into an underground cell somewhere and tortured and killed in private, and that is better than what he deserves. He knows his so-called rights of course, (he’s abused them; he _owns_ them), so he just sits there, in Sebastian’s blood, giggling like a schoolchild, singing that goddamn song under his breath.

John. _John_.

The doctor is crumpled in a catatonic heap in the corner of the room, hanging slightly from the ceiling. His shoulders are red and raw, and _oh God_ , the bruises and the cuts and the broken bones and the burns and the brand. And there’s so much blood, the _gunshot_.

When Sherlock gets to him, he’s burning. Infection, they both know, might be devastating. Even if it can be treated, who is to say that it won’t cause as much damage as the six days of torture did? He undoes the chain but doesn’t take the time to unlock the clasp from the doctor’s wrists, but the pressure lifts off the strained muscles, and John doesn’t react, collapsing, just flinches when Sherlock reaches for him ( _the human thing to do_ , he thinks), so what had been intended to be a comforting hand simply hovers in the light-years between the two men.

John looks up at Sherlock and the eyes are so blank and so glassy, and this is the closest he’s ever seen anyone to being dead while still breathing, but Sherlock’s so used to seeing corpses, why should this one bother him?

 _Because he’s not actually dead, but he wishes he were_.

“You can’t be here,” John whispers despite his impending unconsciousness, with all the confidence of a man disintegrating. “They’ll think I’ve really cracked; I-I’m not crazy, I’m all right! I'm not—I'm not crazy; they haven't broken me. It's j-just-just the drugs. God, oh fucking Christ, leave me alone. Please, _Jesus_ , just go, you can’t be here.”

"John, it’s okay, I’ve got you, I’m here. I’m alive. It’s okay.” He’s trying his best, he really is. He sees the fear, but it doesn’t register.

“Go away!” He shouts as much as his lungs, semi-filled with blood, and tattered vocal cords will allow. “Get the hell out of here! Go! You can’t be here!” He’s screaming and hoarse now, and his body is shaking. Mycroft pulls Sherlock up and out of the way, and the paramedics are holding the convulsing body down and Sherlock doesn’t understand why he’s fucking _crying_ (it’s illogical, it’s so irrational, he isn’t a _child_ , this is not what he does.)

Even Lestrade is trying to speak to Sherlock at present, because no one knows how to deal with him as he’s breaking down and how _awful_ it must be to hear those words from the man you’ve almost died trying to save. “He doesn’t know. Don’t worry; he’ll be okay. We’ve got to him now, and now he’s safe. You got to him; you saved his life. He’s hurt and scared, but we’ll take care of him. It’ll be okay.”

The paramedics slip something into John’s arm and he is still and silent and Sherlock hates it; they lift him into the ambulance, and John is so quiet and tranquil-looking when he’s drugged, like he’s finally found peace. Sherlock tries to make a beeline for the back carriage of the ambulance so he can ride with them, the only thing running through his mind is _protectJohntakecareofJohn staywithJohnholdJohnloveJohnJohnJohn_ ; Mycroft holds him back.

 _This is not for you_ , he warns without words. _Let him be. He’ll be safer that way. They can take care of him._

Sherlock does not see this. Instead, he reads, _he does not want or need you. This is your fault, all because of your stupid game, and he hates you for it. Don’t make it worse._

He is used to being told “no.” He’s used to being told “goodbye” and “I hate you” and “you’re a freak” and “you don’t belong here”, “you machine”. He’s used to it all, but not _really_.

Revenge always seemed so infantile to Sherlock (yet another thing he _knows_ , but doesn’t _understand_ ), but right now, there is nothing he wants to do more than make Jim Moriarty suffer in the same way he made John suffer, and by making John suffer, made _him,_ Sherlock Holmes, _the automaton_ , suffer.

John would make Moriarty’s death quick and easy, and he wouldn’t want Sherlock to become a killer (that’s John’s job, to protect, even in the abstract), but this is all the discord within him aligning for a common goal: destroy James Moriarty.

John is a much better person than Sherlock, though, and he does not know that men's lives are disposable already. Sherlock has killed men before, and he does not need sleep so much as he needs to feel whole again.

Moriarty stares at the detective as he gets dragged out the door, and a crooked smile is twitching upon his thin lips. His plan may be successful yet. This is better than anything he’d imagined, Sebby’s death and his own looming kismet be damned. He knows what Sherlock has become. 

_“You’re not ordinary. You’re me. Bless you, Sherlock Holmes.”_

Sherlock will not kill him, but he will watch him die, and he will feel absolutely everything and nothing at once.

Few things will be more pleasant than seeing James Moriarty dead.             
  


~oOo~

 

Sebastian Moran had been right, in the end _(notice—“had”—always so quick to contradict you, remember Mrs. Monkford?)_. 

They danced on the graves of damned men and neither survived the night. There will be no constellations for them. The empire has fallen; the Ides have passed and history has been rewritten. In the morning, a new era will dawn, one without the looming shadow of the consulting criminal and his ever-loyal tiger hunter.

Mycroft Holmes, the man Jim had so affectionately referred to as “the Iceman”, certainly lives up to his reputation. John is in surgery and Sherlock makes the decision to leave him for a short while (an hour, maybe two, at most; it won’t take long for him to return and John won’t know. He won’t go without him. Besides. Harry and Lestrade are there, and Mrs. Hudson is on her way. He won’t be alone forever, and he never was _truly_ alone.)

What do the Horsemen do after the Judgment Day has passed?

They clear up the rubbish and wreckage and detritus of their games, because they’ve finished everything else.

Mycroft’s disdain for physical labor cedes to his dislike of Jim Moriarty. He uses the pretense of gleaning information as justification for his actions, but there’s nothing left. Moriarty won’t tell him anything, and what’s left to tell could just as easily be taken from other, more reliable, more mentally stable sources. Still, it’s been a while since he’s felt another man’s jaw crack under his knuckles.

Sherlock observes, like a hawk, and catalogues every twitch and every flinch, every blood droplet and saliva trail and devilish smile.

“We’re done here, then, Mr. Moriarty,” Mycroft says eventually, using a red cloth to wipe blood from his knuckles and sweat from his brow.

Mycroft turns and heads to the door, opens it, but does not exit. Instead, he takes something from the hands of his assistant.

She’s changed her name again, no longer preferring the name Bellona. She is Persephone tonight (he knows), in the imminent face of the coming epoch, and she feels it suits her well. She’ll keep it for now, maybe for a long time. Maybe forever ( _but not really. She knows as well as anyone that nothing can be forever, even if the men she's watching right now seem to believe differently)._

He holds the gun, testing its weight in his hand and enjoying the warmth and familiarity it stirs in him.

“Well, then, Mr. Moriarty, I suppose that’s it then. Nothing more to say?”

“I _have_ enjoyed this,” he begins, gleeful and excited. “I’ve died before, but I think you’ll be more thorough with it, I presume?”

“I should certainly hope so.” Mycroft checks the bullets in the gun, examining it carefully, and Moriarty raises his eyebrows.

“You’re not stalling, are you? Tut-tut. So unlike you, Mycroft, love. Though the government has always been rather good at slowing necessary work down considerably.”

“Tell me, if you please, Mr. Moriarty, who was Sebastian Moran to you? How would you describe him?”

“Beautiful. He was beautiful.”

“Hm. How so?”

“He pulled the trigger and felt nothing and always obeyed. What else could you hope for in a pet? Just look at your darling little girl there or Doctor Watson. Both the Holmes boys had one, and I always have coveted what others had. I just get so jealous sometimes. So I made my own, and then I decided, why not take someone else’s when I had the chance? That’s capitalism for you, my dear.”

"People care for their pets.” Mycroft says, twisting the silencer onto the barrel. Everything is slow and methodical, almost surreal. It is then that Sherlock realizes he was never the king on the other side of the chessboard. It was always Mycroft. This is the battle of wits between the two kings, the unwilling surrender after checkmate.

“I am not a person.”

“Then what are you?”

“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He giggles, singsong and maddening. “What am I? What _am_ I? You tell me, Mr. Holmes.”

“You’re a pest. A rodent.”

“I am a _god_.” He leans in, in spite of his bindings. “Am I starting to sound like your baby brother yet? What about _you_ , Mr. Mycroft Holmes?”

Mycroft smacks him once with the butt of the pistol, and he really shouldn’t have, but it makes sense to do so at the time. Moriarty spits out blood and grins, running his tongue over his lips.

“Are you going to kill me, Mr. Holmes, or am I going to die of old age first?”

Mycroft points the gun at him and his face is, as ever, carefully and completely devoid of emotion. But he lets Moriarty speak regardless, because he was raised on politeness and it is the gentlemanly thing to do, even if he doesn’t like it. No one really likes being well-mannered, anyway.

“What do you think this world will be without me, Mycroft? You _need_ me. I keep things interesting. Sherlock needs me too. He’s just like me, you know, except he’s so weak. Fucking goddamn John Watson crumbles and he just drops everything. Sebby. I can get a new one anywhere. I can create my own. But you two, you could have been _so_ much. I could have been so much with you.”

“Is this you trying to beg for your life?”

“This is me, seeing if you’ll ever end it.” The barrel of the pistol presses against his forehead and he closes his eyes, his laugh rolling and shaking his body, barely contained. “You know what’s coming, Mycroft Holmes. _Aprés moi, le deluge._ After me—”

Mycroft pulls the trigger in single, staccato motion, with carefully trained follow-through and minimal kickback. In a halo of brain matter and fresh blood against the grey wall, Jim Moriarty is absolutely and unequivocally dead.

“After me, comes the flood.” Sherlock whispers from behind the one-way mirror, and even though he’d thought he would be pleased to see Moriarty dead, he feels sick instead, and he doesn’t know why. But he knows he should get back to John, and words, _so many words_ , are rattling around in his mind, but mostly the ones that hurt him the most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joseph Conrad: "this too is one of the darker places on the planet" (Heart of Darkness)  
> Aprés moi, le deluge ("after me, comes the flood:( supposedly Napoleon's last words (Napoleon of crime, anybody?)
> 
> I know it was a bit weird, and that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse thing has been done a bit, but I'm going to write a follow-up. The Apocalypse bit was actually written as a separate vignette and added, as was the bit about Jim being a colossus. Fun fact: _I actually took out several biblical allusions because it was getting **too** wordy and pretentious. _ T.S. Eliot wrote a lot with themes of the Bible, Apocalypse and quoted scripture, so I thought that, considering this work is based off his work, I should do so as well. 
> 
> Saoirse Sparrow was named because a) Doctor Who (Sally Sparrow) b) Saoirse means "freedom", as in, "freedom in death", but also, "free bird", which, apart from being a Lynard Skynard song, seemed fitting for a runaway escaping from an unhealthy lifestyle (even if it's to another unhealthy lifestyle). I tell you, names are important!
> 
> Next chapter is exceedingly long. Currently ~26 pages, but it's finished, for the most part, so I need to re-edit it. I have not yet written the epilogue. I don't know if I'm satisfied with the ending, so I might write a sort of AU to this AU because I can, so fuck you.


	9. The hope only of empty men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tragedy strikes, I accidentally slash, the theme of T.S. Eliot's titular poem is invoked, the author plans to write an AU to an AU, Harry can't find a goddamn cup of coffee, there are panic attacks on the Tube and in crime scenes, and **nothing is happy or heart-warming.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MORE MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS**
> 
>  
> 
> This is the beginning of the end, folks. All that's left now is the hitherto unwritten EPILOGUE. Seeing as it doesn't yet exist, I can't tell you exactly when that will be finished. And yes, there are "Ash Wednesday", "The Waste Land", and "The Lovesong of Alfred J. Prufrock" references/quotes for you. If you find them, you get a cookie.
> 
> Disclaimer: **I am not a medical professional. There is nothing that 3-4 hours of Internet research will do that will make me so. Medical diagnoses and opinions are deus ex machina therefore and my fault entirely.**
> 
> This part is basically unbetaed because everyone is busy. As always, I love comments, so leave them here. If you'd like to, consider this fic **finished** , and the epilogue is kind of like a fun surprise attachment that will get uploaded eventually. College is taking a shit on my normal schedule, so I don't know when I'll get around to it. The next chapter to be uploaded is actually a brief literary analysis essay of the titular poem as it relates to this fic, and **then** the epilogue will follow afterward. Eventually.
> 
>  
> 
> I regret (and own) nothing. Don't forget to review! 
> 
> And my Tumblr name is tinibellbeanie and I will be uploading the fic at some point online in other forms, such as on Tumblr and possibly on LJ and FF.net. I don't have either of the latter, so that would require more effort on my part, possibly more than I'm willing to give to anything other than sleep.

**_“There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.” —Dante_ **

 

In spite of his usual impatience, normally so characteristic of the consulting detective, Sherlock sits rather quietly in the waiting room, now returned from the private execution of Jim Moriarty. His fingers are tented underneath his chin; his eyes are closed, and his arms bear no nicotine patches nor do any cigarettes grace his lips, because John hates it when he does that, and besides, if he were to attempt to light a cigarette, he knows his hands would shake noticeably. He doesn’t want to be noticed, at the moment. He wants to be the man in the shadows again, the one who was supposed to be dead and grieved, the one who cured John’s limp once and forced it to return upon his so-called death. He wants to be the man who had hoped to one day to return to a John who had settled into an ordinary life because it was necessary for survival, one who would take up at a moment’s notice to live the life he’d once loved.

But the John who had been scooped up off the ground by paramedics mere hours ago, as a restrained Sherlock watched helplessly, he is not the same man Sherlock had once envisioned during lonely, cold nights in unforgiving, foreign lands. This John had told him to leave ( _get the hell out/you can’t be here/leave me alone/just go)_. His knees are bouncing and he is glancing around, almost nervous, definitely anxious (for what, exactly? For a prognosis? For an apology? For a chance to explain?)—symptoms of shredding nerves and patience departed.

He stands up and Mycroft only glances at him above his paper.

"Where are you going?” He asks with only the barest notes of concern seeping through his syllables.

“Out. I need—I need…” Sherlock pauses, trying to think of what _people_ say in these situations. “I need a walk. Air. I need to get some air.”

Mycroft glances at Lestrade, who shrugs, looking altogether bedraggled and world-weary, with all the characteristics of a man who knows he will be haunted by nightmares tonight and for some nights to come. Lestrade knows he will wake up in a cold sweat, in a bed alone, and he will only have some hard liquor and himself as comfort. Mycroft too knows nightmares. He has created them and he suffers from them; they all do. They are all men of war, after all, and though their wars differ, the destruction they cause is highly scarring and always visible—just below the surface, and it always tears soldiers apart, in its own way. War is hell, and they all live in their own bizarre little hells, playing at being civilians and civilized. War is a drug, and they are all junkies.

“Just…” Lestrade begins, sighing again with the slightest rasp of a wheeze ( _breathing deeply, his asthma is usually so well controlled, but as of late, it’s been getting out of sorts. Still, he doesn’t want to use his inhaler while in the company of others—pride. The fragility of the human male. He doesn’t want to be seen as weak, not in front of Sherlock and especially not in front of Mycroft.)_ “Just be careful. God knows I can’t…”

He doesn’t finish his thought; he doesn’t need to, because all three men are finishing it themselves with different words.

_“…bear to see you hurt.”_

_“…do this without you.”_

_"…lose another one of you today.”_

The three of them were born in different decades, separated by generations, follow entirely different guidelines and possess ideologies and characters that often clash with the others’, and yet, they have been connected in nerves and epinephrine and synapses and thoughts through suffering, as is the human condition. Tragedy brings even the strongest men to their knees, and if all men kneel, they are all equals; when men are equal, there is a strange sense of awful companionship that does not need to be acknowledged to be understood.

Sherlock heads toward the exit and he sees Harry Watson near a vending machine, staring blankly; she hates those sodding buttons that will not give her what she really wants (this _is_ a hospital, after all). She hears him and jumps, and tries to put on a pleasant face, because God knows somebody in this goddamn waiting room has to at least _look_ put together.

“ _Christ_! You’re like a fucking cat. My God. Don’t do that.” She laughs, but she doesn’t mean it. It’s a deep, low chuckle that lacks mirth but makes up for it in overwrought sarcasm, reverberates and racketing through empty hospital corridors and sounds wholly out of place. Hospitals should not contain laughter. It’s just not done.

(Maybe because it sounds just like the laugh John had when he was uncomfortable and the slightest bit upset. It sounds like Dartmoor and over-earnest coffee with unwanted sugar in it.)

“Do what?”

“Sneak up on me like that. Jesus Christ, fuck. Almost gave me a heart attack.”

“That would be unlikely. In spite of your alcoholism, your heart appears to be relatively healthy. Rather lucky, considering.” Sherlock says calmly, half-understanding the inappropriateness of his words, but not completely.

Neither of them is lucky. Neither of them has ever known serendipity. Trouble and misfortune are their mainsails.  

Harry glowers at him for a moment and then shakes it off. She then, like, her brother, does something completely unexpected. Picking up the too-hot Styrofoam cup from the tray, she thrusts a coffee cup into his hands and walks away with a huff.

“You look like you need it more than I do.”

“I don’t drink cappuccino—”

“I know!” She calls back, flying out the door at the most languid of paces, directed straight to the nearest pub where she can drown herself and revive herself at will.

He bins the coffee straight away. It’s a waste, he should think to himself, because John would say so (military men leave nothing to squander away; they do not live such extravagant lives, and besides, John had lived in want for much of his life), but he really cannot force himself to care.

He normally would take a cab, but he hates the invasive silence of cabs without John’s incessant remarks, quips on his brilliance and often-awkward small talk, and besides, he only wants to drown out the sound of his own thoughts with anything—even rapid-fire, overwhelming deduction would be preferable to the painful sounds of quiet disquiet within his mind. He takes the Tube and the car feels so very cold during the tail-end of the rush hour commute. He wedges himself between a heavyset man ( _habitual smoker, having an affair on his wife, probably with a prostitute, at least two teenaged children, money troubles, probably an accountant, works with fingers and also electronics, has a cat but also an underlying allergy, depressed)_ and a teenaged girl listening to hip-hop too loudly on oversized headphones _(pot smoker, relatively good grades, wannabe artist, plays cello and guitar, single, bisexual but most likely a virgin, has marijuana in her bag—it would be inappropriate to ask, and Mycroft would notice and let Lestrade know and they would ruin everything)_ , and for the first time, he feels calm, because it’s not him that’s thinking, it’s the world that’s speaking to him and he’s just the messenger—the observer who stands to the side and comes and goes without leaving a mark, and John is just at Baker Street waiting for him, and he’s just harpooned a pig at a butcher’s shop and _none of the cabs would take me_ and he’s just in nicotine withdrawal ( _that would explain the rapid heartbeat and the shaky breaths)_ and things will be okay soon, but for now, they’re just making him angry and that’s fear and doubt seeping into his mind and something else and—

“Mister? You all right?”

The girl with the headphones. Looking at him suspiciously. She’s making the same face as Donovan or Anderson or any one of the millions and millions have done, those who have looked at him and thought _freak_ and felt nothing (he’s supposed to be the sociopath; why is that _they_ are the ones who feel no remorse?).

“W-what?” He stutters out and hates his inability to remain poised and calm.

“You. Are you okay? You look a bit _eh_.” Not a word. He can feel his anxiety subsiding for distinctive disdain for the idiots that inhabit the world.

“Fine. It’s all fine.”

“You’re just breathing kind of hard, ‘s all.”

Now the overweight man is staring at him through tiny, disparaging eyes, and even though Sherlock and he are nearly the same height, that’s a familiar look too, one that reminds him of being a child and Sherlock feels small.

(John never made Sherlock feel small.)

(Makes.)

“I am quite fine. Please stop talking to me.” He feels none of the rudeness saturating his words, but all of the contempt. “This is my stop. Good day.” He exits at Regent’s Street, and remembers exactly why he hates the Tube.

There were easily forty people wedged into that car, and not a single one of them _saw_ , _observed_ , _knew_ that there was a dead man living amongst them, resurrected like some sort of goddamn Jesus Christ, sacrificing himself for their sins and _did they even care_ that the world’s most dangerous madman was shot point-blank in the head just two hours ago or that he’d (well, _his sniper_ ) had shot Sherlock Holmes’ best and only friend who is in surgery as he has been for six hours now and he could be dying and now Sherlock is on Weighhouse Street and he doesn’t even remember turning the corner or why he is there, but he keeps moving.

The anxiety is back. The haze of deduction from the Tube has faded, if it was ever there at all.

Sherlock Holmes would be loath to admit it, but he does believe in a higher power. It’s not himself, and it’s not God, or any other god, for that matter, but science. He believes in science and John Watson, who happens to be a man of science, but not a man restrained by science. John Watson is a miracle, which is, by its very nature, un-scientific and completely illogical, which makes Sherlock Holmes a man of faith, too, because he has put a part of himself in unreasonable and unfounded ideals and built his world around them and his only deity is an angel called Watson. When he prays, with fingers steepled underneath his chin, he prays to John Watson, and when he makes a sacrifice (of blood, of life, of Tesco beans and a new carton of milk, of clean veins), he makes it in the name of John Watson, so John Watson _has_ to be okay, because no man has ever had his god die on him before.

Sherlock Holmes believes in new experiences, but he does not like the idea of that particular experiment. Experiments have to have trials, and there will never be another test-run for him.

He enters the temple that is 6C Weighhouse, covered in crime scene tape and still smelling faintly of Earl Grey and gunpowder and the cleaning crew’s chemicals. That might be his imagination, if he had one not so completely repressed, because his subconscious tells him that Earl Grey and gunpowder are John, and so is cotton and polyester blend in secondhand clothes and minty toothpaste with shampoo mixed with just a hint of cologne and cheap, generic products and ale and sweat and that wet, earthy, loamy smell of the produce section at Tesco.

He hates those smells, just as much as he hates the Tube and stupidity and the feeling that they should be familiar and are no longer, that they are fading and he can’t do anything about it.

There is no dull, nagging voice in the back of his mind telling him to _be rational_ as he walks through 6C Weighhouse, but he does not notice his absence because that voice belongs to John, and he’s grown used to radio silence on his part. He examines the rooms that had contained a man so filled with rage and loyalty and compassion, one Sherlock had viewed as a sort of unbreakable demigod. John had been perplexing, and that made him fascinating, and that made him important. Somehow, one man, whose most definable feature is his extraordinary capacity for ordinariness, had managed to displace Sherlock’s inflated sense of self-importance and altered his worldview and _how dare John Watson disrupt everything Sherlock Holmes had spent 30-odd years working toward?_ He had been prepared to be alone (he _is_ alone, now), to die young (he _did_ die young), to be friendless and hated (he _is_ so hated; John had told him to _get out_ , he had told him so, and now his only friend hangs in the balance between irrationality and unknown, the worst two devils in a genius’s mind). How _dare_ he take everything Sherlock had created, make himself necessary and important, become the focal point, a linchpin? How dare he lie unconscious and idle as Sherlock’s world crumbles?

(Sherlock is marvelously talented at destruction; John’s true talent lies in restoration. They’re both artists in this way. Sherlock fancies himself a Renaissance man, Michelangelo, perhaps, because he was brilliant and moody and unpredictable, but maybe he’s Vincent Van Gogh, who died lonely, unloved and disrespected, filled with regret and shame. John could be Picasso, bizarre shapes that fit together in ways they should not, but make art and beauty regardless of logic and reasons, or Seurat, whose work looks beautiful but simplistic from afar, but upon inspection, contains incredible intricacies in paint dots, providing for endless captivation.)

Sherlock Holmes is not pacing, because that implies careful thought and rational behavior. He huffs in huge, great pants, desperate for oxygen (breathing _had_ been boring before he could no longer do so). He’s pressing his arms against his chest, a shield of flesh and bone to protect a shriveling heart and wracked, empty, hollow lungs; his shields are useless against the violence within him. He’s not pacing; he’s spinning, trying, turning concentrically, running elliptical ruts into the carpeted floor, trying not to focus on the blood all over the molded ceiling and beige ( _dull_ ) walls.

He can’t stay in the same room, in which this had all started and ended. Instead, he migrates into the nearest room he can find, desperate to retreat into a cave, where he can grasp at familiar shadows that dance upon walls and stalactites threaten to impale him, crush him (that was the risk he took everyday. Before, in his prelapserian life, it thrilled him. Now he feels nothing).

 _You were happier_ , he tries to think to himself bitterly. _Before John. There was no way to hurt you. You were invulnerable. You were brilliant. Now look at you_ —

Interrupting his angry internal monologue, he slams the door and slides down, curling in on himself and wrapping the coat around him so tightly, he hoped he would stop breathing. This is more than doubt, like what he’d felt at the Cross Keys; it has the same, unpleasant acidity, but it is reminiscent of what he’d tasted deep, below the throat, in his heart and the pit of his stomach and felt it all the way down in his feet, when he’d seen John step out at the pool, and for the split second, he’d thought _“Well, of course he tricked me; how do_ you _get a colleague?”_ And then the parka revealed Semtex and he switched from disappointment to terror because he _did_ have more-than-a-colleague and he was in imminent danger of being ripped away from him.

This is where John had slept, had limped, had drunk tea, had lived, and who’d fallen in love and it is not Baker Street. Sherlock has carefully considered and categorized emotions to be unveiled or repressed as needed (he’d said “high-functioning sociopath” because it seemed better than the truth—he’d rather be hated than disregarded or pitied). In spite of painstaking research and meticulous analysis, he’s not sure what exactly this is. Regret? Jealousy? Guilt? He’s never quite had room in his svelte frame for conflicting, indefinable emotions.

John had lived here alone before Mary Morstan, resenting but necessitating Mycroft’s materialistic penance, in a different form of discomfort than the one he’d lived with while in the stark, barrack-like bedsit, familiar in that it carried with it a pervasive sense of uselessness. The newer bedsit is different in that even when he _was_ needed, it was not the sort of need that he required to feel whole again.

Now, this flat, with its picture frames and proper tableware and filled bookshelves with medical texts and well-read novels, has the distinct feel of a place that became reluctantly loved. The pastel-and-taupe walls contain memories made by two people who loved each other, and Sherlock was placed in shoeboxes deep in closets, or behind newer photographs in shinier frames.

He knows he shouldn’t feel this way; that it’s not fair because _he_ left John behind and alone and he should be happy for him, because John’s a friend and that’s what friends do. _The_ friend, because there’s no one else, and never will be. He shouldn’t feel jealousy or resent Mary because she probably saved John’s life, _but she couldn’t fix John’s limp, and I’m better at fixing him than she ever could be._

 _But_ , he then thinks resignedly, _you’re also better at hurting him._

After navigating his way through his emotions, harmonized by huge, shuddering sobs and little, hitched breaths, he stands. He walks over to the bedside table on John’s side—he can tell because John always tucks in the folds of his bedclothes tight and drawn. The first drawer is orderly and half-full, with four books (well-worn copies of _On the Origin of the Species_ and _The Greatest Benefit to Mankind_ , both flagged with post-it notes for future reference,a hardcover _Generation Kill_ , with the glossy cover bookmarking it halfway through approximately—so for leisure reading, not for studies, obvious, really, given the subject matter—and yellowed copy of _Winnie the Pooh_ , of all things), a box of condoms, a torch, his medical kit, a moleskine notebook with an attached fountain pen (engraved—an engagement present from Harry) and a framed photograph of a preteen John and a teenaged Harry and their mother from before chemotherapy had taken her hair, rather than simply her vivacity and her husband.

The second drawer is locked, but that poses little issue for Sherlock’s insatiable curiosity. When the lock gives way, Sherlock finds photos and newspaper articles and everything John had wished to forget tucked away in the little drawer. He would not have kept his gun there, of course, because the drawer was locked when Sherlock came to it and besides, John is a man of action. He would need to get to his gun quickly and would have little time or patience for keys and locks in the event of an emergency.

 _So that’s it, then_ , Sherlock thinks bitterly. _I’ve become a drawer in his life._

He picks up the first photograph on the top of the disorderly pile. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the mess—it is not chronologically organized, nor is it by sentimental value. It’s not organized at all, the antithesis to his vision of John, who seemed to fight a constant war with disorder. But then again, Sherlock is (was) disorder, so it would make sense that the drawer that now contains him would be disarray to the extreme. All the contents are coated with a fine layer of dust, at least two months old, and there are more substantial items interspersed throughout. The infernal deerstalker is there, as is a copy of _London A to Z_ , the pair of diamond cufflinks (never worn), a DVD of some Bond film, and, bafflingly, a ring box atop a manila envelope.           

Regardless of privacy, he opens the small, velveteen box and discovers two golden wedding bands.

The engravings say _To my John—with love, Mary_ and _To Mary, always yours, John_. Inexplicably, he had deigned to store their future wedding rings in the locked drawer of chaos and Sherlock. He narrows his eyes, with contempt minimally disguising his confusion, and picks up the folder. Thumbing through it, he sees letters. Unsent, dated beginning May 5, 2012 and up until six weeks before his abduction.

His mind is reeling, even though it should be inconsequential. _Why would he keep the rings in_ that _drawer? Why would he leave them where they would get dusty and go unnoticed? It’s not as though she would be surprised to find them—she engraved hers. She obviously knew what they look like and if he’d wanted to hide them properly, he wouldn’t have hidden them in their room in a drawer of untouched mementos right next to their bed, where she could find them._

That’s what he is, now. A relic collecting dust.

Or perhaps.

Perhaps this is sentiment.

Sentiment is a huge part of John’s life, after all. It has always seemed to permeate his very being, seep from every pore. It hangs about him, if Sherlock could have only one adjective to describe him, it would probably be “sentimental,” but fortunately, he has many others at his disposal ( _loyal_ , _dedicated, trustworthy, kind, unattainable, cynical, gentle, luminous, understated, impossible, praiseworthy, surprising, beloved, strong, brave, explosive, perplexing, indescribable)_ , so he does not have to stop at sentimental.

So this is sentiment in physical form. This locked drawer holds what is most important to him, and he locks it away not to keep it away from him at arm’s length, but to keep it safe, because soldiers protect what they love (Queen, country, family, brethren, lovers or fallen friends—even if they must become martyrs to defend them).

John Watson locked himself into this drawer with Sherlock, and slowly brought his memories and his valuables into it with him so he could protect what mattered most, and Sherlock mattered to him, at least, he did once, and perhaps he still matters, even after two years, ten months, four weeks, three days and nine hours of absentia.

His phone buzzes and stirs him from his reverie, and for once, Mycroft’s intervention is welcome.

_He’s out of surgery. —MH_

**He doesn’t want to see me. —SH**

_You cannot base that on words said when he was drugged, shot and dying. —MH_

_Where are you? —MH_

**You know perfectly well. Ask your lackeys. —SH**

_That’s a crime scene. You shouldn’t be there. Not that it ever stopped you. —MH_

**I needed to be here. —SH**

He picks up the ring box again, and looks over its edges. He handles it with care, as though it contained something more fragile than two bands of gold, because it doesn’t just hold two rings, but some part of John’s life that Sherlock had no part in. It holds love and suffering and all sorts of memories that Sherlock can never understand, not for want of trying.

**Do you think he’d appreciate some of hiseffects? Hospitals are so impersonal. —SH**

_I do not think he would appreciate you breaking and entering into his flat and taking his things. Then again, I also rather think he will have greater worries than daylight robbery after this ordeal. Do what you will. —MH_

**This isn’t his flat. —SH**

_Oh? Then what is it? His name is on the lease. —MH_

**His flat is at Baker Street, and that’s where his things are, because that’s where my things are, because what’s mine is his. We have an agreement. —SH**

_So why bother taking anything from his flat at all? —MH_

**Sentiment. —SH**

 

~oOo~

 

Gregory Lestrade has never seen a man look quite so grey in a very long time. Perhaps it is because the figure in the hospital bed is someone he knows ( _knew?_ In spite of the odd pint or occasional coffee, he can’t honestly say he knows Doctor John Watson at all, and he is supposed to serve as best man in his wedding in a few months.)

(Was supposed to serve as best man.)

Men are not supposed to look so grey. Things are not supposed to fall in equal portions between dark and light, but squarely on one side or the other. But there are shadows under his eyes, blood and bruises and cuts on his face, and the ungodly whirring sound of machinery and forced oxygen and _Jesus I need a fag these fucking patches are shit_.

Harry is sitting next to the bed and the good Doctor Montgomery is speaking to her softly behind locked doors and has a hand on her shoulder and she’s crying and that’s never a good sign.

 _This man is going to make a liar out of me, this Doctor Montgomery_.

He thanks his neglected God that Sherlock Holmes is not in the hospital right now trying to interfere and listen in, even though Mycroft has told him with no uncertain terms that he’s off committing a felony by breaking and entering into a crime scene in central London. Sherlock and Lestrade had spent the better part of four hours in the closest thing to praying that they were capable of, after the Holmes brothers returned from God-knows-where with Moriarty and Sherlock nodded at Lestrade and did not say _“he’s dead”_ but he might as well have.

Lestrade was raised French Catholic, and he can’t say exactly when he abandoned his God but he can tell you the exact date he told his mother and father that he no longer believed in any sort of God, Catholic or otherwise. It was March 23, 1989, and he was 26 and had never seen the body of a child before. He wasn’t quite new on the force, but he wandered the streets pretending he had authority and wasn’t just one punk kid arresting another, but this wasn’t some graffiti artist painting a building or a junkie on the corner pushing drugs in Brixton, but in a proper house where people were supposed to live and thrive and grow, not die. He was told that, as far as bodies go, this one was not exactly a clean one, but at least the death was quick and she didn’t suffer. The girl was perhaps seven or eight, not much older than his niece Claire, and had dark brown hair and hazel eyes just like the Lestrade kids all do (when they’re born, the eyes are blue and green and brown, but eventually they settle to be a rich chocolate-color and pleasant and somewhat canine in appearance, not vicious, but loyal and dependable).

He remembers how the baby looked, curled up on the floor of the living room, where she’d been discovered by her mother, who promptly arranged the body to look as though she were asleep. She called 999 frantically, but held her daughter in her arms, rocking her back and forth, because children often have nightmares when they sleep. And she screamed and sobbed when the paramedics tore her from her little girl, and he has never forgotten the sound of that mother’s scream.

It had been the stepfather who killed the child, for no other reason than that he simply forgot where his strength ended and her body began, and she was so fragile. He hadn’t meant to, but he was drunk and she was delicate and he broke her apart and couldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop because the alcohol was rushing through him ( _“like snakes,”_ the man had said later, and Lestrade thought that quite peculiar at the time, but now he understands, he thinks, because he’s killed men too. It’s not drink that slithers through your veins like that; that’s adrenaline and death and another soul rushing out of their body through your hands or your gun.)

_And Lord lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen._

That child’s stepfather had been tempted, and no God or Devil could protect such a little, _little_ girl from the wickedness of man, because evil is not supernatural; it is so very human, and it lives in our homes with us, and it murders our daughters and betrays our Gods and sometimes, it walks free, like James Moriarty did, and sometimes, it destroys doctors and angels and saints and detectives, and sometimes, it tricks you too, the knight-pretending-to-be-king, and makes you evil, and you _can’t fight it because it’s within you, and always has been_.

Lestrade decided that night that he would never be able to believe in a God who could not protect a child from a man she lived with. That man who had claimed he loved her, the same way old matrons and men with white and black collars say that God loved her. Lestrade believes in man, and the Met, but he does not believe in God, not anymore.

 To his credit, Lestrade did not vomit until he returned home that night, to an empty flat that was blissfully without children for him to fear for. Now, he imagines children, faceless and vague, along with a wife and a proper family, and they become the bodies on the floors, but he knows it did not hold the same sort of terror that the dreams of his coworkers contained. Sometimes he imagines his brother or sister’s children. He never tells his siblings about those dreams. He never dreamt of Annabel like that, either, because he has seen her body too, and it’s not the same.

“Mr. Holmes,” Lestrade begins, not looking up from his scuffed shoes. “I think you should bring your brother back here now.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that.” Mycroft Holmes is peering at the detective inspector over his BlackBerry, and he’s texting, but not focusing. Sherlock had once said that Mycroft never texts when he can call, so there must be some significance to this moment that Lestrade cannot divine. “So? What is your course?”

“What?” His shoes did not tell him any answer, so he turns his attention to his crappy cup of hospital coffee.

“Regarding my brother. What shall we tell Sherlock?”

“I assume that ‘the truth’ is out of the question.” He looks up now, and stares into Mycroft’s unnerving eyes, that belie any familiarity or camaraderie that Lestrade potentially felt in the wake of Sherlock’s now-defunct suicide. Only in situations such as this is it difficult to believe that the Holmes boys are related. Sherlock is human and Mycroft is something more, terrifying and extra-human, not quite a machine, but a looming and invisible, an army within one body. “Hang on, why are you asking me? You’re his brother. Do what you want. He’s been dead for three years; I’m not exactly _experienced_ with this situation.”

“And you assume that I am?”

“God knows what you lot get up to over in Whitehall.”

“For goodness’ sake, Detective Inspector, I occupy—”

“Please, Mr. Holmes, save that tripe; I’m not stupid. If you won’t tell me, that’s fine. I’m not too keen either way.” He sighs. “I assume that you’re thinking along the same lines as I am, looking in on Montgomery and the sister.”

“If I had to guess, which I don’t, I would say infection will take him within the next week. No doubt, he will want us to lie to Sherlock. Protect him. I doubt it will work, but he _has_ been rather distracted lately. Perhaps sheer force of want will compel him to believe our perfidy.”

Normally Lestrade would make a note at the antiquated word, but he’s not quite the bastard to do so, and he’s not quite the gentleman to quell a half-hearted smirk. It does not leaven the weight from his shoulders.

“So we lie.” The inspector says, defeated.

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

“How long before he realizes, do you think?”

“Not long, I expect, but by the time he does, it will be too late, and he’ll have to save his anger for later. John always has brought out the best in him, despite my past admonitions.”

“And…after? What happens then?”

“I do what the Holmes do best. I observe and choose my course of action based on my perceptions.”

“And what do I do?” Lestrade swallows, but folds his arms in front of him, almost forming a shield between himself and inevitability. “I don’t sit and observe.”

“Obviously.” Mycroft retorts, and perhaps Lestrade should feel insulted, because it probably is an insult, in a subtle sort of way, but he feels nothing ( _shock_ , _probably, Christ, get it together; you’re a copper and coppers don’t cry._ )

“You didn’t answer me.”

“You just do as you’ve always done. Stumble through life and hope for the best. Whether or not Sherlock will assist you in making sense of your cases remains to be seen.” Mycroft peers at him. “Do you wish for him to continue to advise you?”

Lestrade doesn’t respond for a long while. He can see Harry wiping her eyes and Doctor Montgomery stalk toward the door with all the awkwardness of a man who has just informed a woman that her brother is dying and his body is destroying itself and there’s nothing anyone can do for him.

“Yes, I suppose I do.” He sighs. “We can always use his help.” That feels like a lie on his lips, and he thinks it seems a bit more like poison than anything else. _You want_ their _help more, though. It just doesn’t seem right otherwise._

 

~oOo~

 

His hands have not stopped shaking since Mycroft murdered James Moriarty, but his brain has been remarkably quiet since he was pulled from 6C Weighhouse by Mycroft’s nameless assistant and an equally nameless man in a bespoke suit.

Then again, it has been eleven hours, and Sherlock has moved only twice, between the loo and his perch at John’s bedside, and the other was almost negligible, to create a pile of John’s things at his feet so he would feel a little more at home when he awoke.

It should not surprise him whenever he hears the coughs and wheezes coming from the unconscious man beside him; after all, he _knows_ that the man has suffered considerably and his lungs have been damaged, but even so, it doesn’t seem right at all.

“You’re…still here,” whispers John from the side of the bed, and Sherlock doesn’t register that it’s reality, at first, because he imagined John’s awakening as very, very different, without the slurred words and the slight lisp. “Christ, I must be losing my mind after all. I must be going insane.”

“John,” Sherlock practically leans over the bed, looking at him, inspecting him. The man’s eyes aren’t focusing, pupils blown wide from the drugs; he’s barely lucid, if that’s what you can call it. “How do you feel?”

Sherlock feels himself propelling into banality, and John shouldn’t appreciate that, because it’s not _Sherlock_. Sherlock can be vicious with his words, biting and unnecessarily cruel, but he is not prosaic when he speaks. Sherlock has read in the past few hours that victims of trauma appreciate familiarity upon awakening, but they also appreciate gentility, and Sherlock is caught between a rock and a hard place with that one.

“Go to sleep, love.” John says, dropping off into sleep. “I’ll see you…you in the morning.”

The placidity lasts only a second; John shakes a bit, and Sherlock is holding his arms, shouting his name so loudly that the nurse rushes in and drags him away. Any semblance of coherence has left him. He’s crying out _“don’t touch me! What have you done? Please God, make it stop! Just leave me; don’t touch me, don’t touch me!_

John had no idea what he was saying, the nurse assures him, but even so, Sherlock abandons his perch and Harry takes his place while Sherlock waits for words or anything, really; he waits like a stone, on an uncomfortable chair in the hallway. But it’s a façade ( _he’s always been so very, very talented at deceit, so talented that he could trick his best friend into hating him and make him_ believe _it_ ). Instead, he’s reeling and shaken from the words and trying to decipher the brief madness.

Sherlock no longer exists for John Watson. He’s a figment, a dream and nothing more, a simple refuge from his lurid reality and he had, at some point, gone from being an elegant fiction to something altogether nightmarish. And then there was the pet name, which seemed unnatural because John had no endearing, obnoxious monikers for Sherlock, for which he _had_ been grateful previously, but now he doesn’t really understand what he feels.

 John probably thought that he was speaking to Mary at first because he called him “love” and that’s wrong, wrong, _wrong_ and definitely _unfair_.

 

John sleeps for another eight hours, and it is the early afternoon when he wakes up again.

When he wakes up in the hospital for a second time, he sees Harry asleep in the chair, and he cries silently so he doesn’t wake her up. He wants to curl up around the hole in his torso and fall into it and disappear, but he knows he can’t, with pain permeating every pore.

 _And you were so, so close to Heaven, too, but you always have to cock it up, don’t you?_  he thinks.

He wants to burn away every inch of himself so nothing remains but ash. If fire exposes one’s priorities, then his priorities are fucked up indeed. His hands are shaking, and he’s so nauseous, he needs to expel the ice in his veins that itches him and freezes him, just under the skin. He manages to croak out his sister’s name, and she wakes with a start, tries to be gentle, which is just not like her at all (he’s always been the gentle one, after all), and when he points to a bedpan for him to vomit in, she complies readily. Tit-for-tat, that one, because John has held her hair back for her during her many failed attempts at sobriety, and they owe a strange debt to each other. She calls for Doctor Montgomery and receives a nurse instead, and she sits next to him and brushes his hair from his sweaty brow as the nurse checks his vitals and examines him.

When Doctor Montgomery enters, bringing an aura of authority, John asks Harry to leave. He would like to speak to the man as an equal, not a patient, and her presence is not helping. Her lack of pugnacity is disquieting. Usually she’s so quick to argue.

“Doctor Watson,” Montgomery says, pulling up Harry’s chair. “Tell me, how do you feel?”

“They drugged me.” He replies instead, because his doctor knows _damn_ well how John feels. “I-I know what withdrawal should feel like, but…It can be—it only takes a few hits to become addicted.”

“It was cocaine, wasn’t it, Doctor?”

“You would know better than me. You have my bloodwork. Surely you can tell me what it is. Cocaine doesn’t usually have such…hallucinogenic effects, as far as I’ve seen.”

He’s researched the effects of cocaine. Needless to say, soldiers in Afghanistan did their fair share of self-medicating to cope with the daily traumas of life on the battlefield, and he’d only furthered his knowledge with the drug once he’d moved in with Sherlock. So-called “danger nights”, he knew, were exactly that: _dangerous_ , and now he’s suffering through his own lifetime of “danger nights”.

“Mm. Yes, the cocaine was cut with a relatively unknown hallucinogen.” He sighs, and neither man says anything for a while. “Would you like to see your chart, or would you prefer me to say what you already suspect?”

John makes no movement, so Montgomery does not go for the chart at the foot of the bed.

“The bullet wound was not clean by any means, and the internal damage was extensive. Blood loss has weakened you, and you underwent three transfusions during and after the surgery. The operation went smoothly, however…I’m sure you already feel feverish, though we have managed to take the fever down considerably. We believe that it spiked at least 48 hours ago, and since then, has been taking a significant toll on your internal organs. The acute-phase proteins were released about then, and have damaged the vasculature and internal organs. The blood cultures came back positive for septic bacteria. Your blood is poisoning you.”

He sits, weak, frail and stony-faced, and says nothing.

“Doctor Watson?” Montgomery clasps his hands in front of him. “Doctor Watson, have you heard and understood what I’ve said?”

“Yes.” He says quietly. “I’m dying, and there’s nothing that will make me better.”

“Is there someone you’d like to speak to…someone other than those here to whom you’d like to see? A therapist? An attorney? We’ll be sure to keep the press as far away as possible. I’d imagine you’d like quiet.”

“The press?”

“Yes, though whether or not that’s a good thing is anybody’s bet. Your…abduction received not-inconsiderable notice from the mills.”

There doesn’t seem to be an appropriate segue between what he wants to say and the topic at hand, so John remains quiet, as is so often his way.

“John?” Montgomery presses, even though John has _nothing_ he wants to say to the man at the moment. He only wants to sleep, because maybe it will keep the burning under his skin at bay, at least for a while. “John, if there’s anything…at all…we can do for you, don’t—don’t hesitate to ask us. You have quite a few admirers amongst us. Not many could do what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He mutters feebly.

“Pardon?”

“What _exactly_ did I do, Doctor Montgomery? I got _broken_ , that’s what. No one ever became a hero by becoming broken, so stop treating me like I’m anything but incapable.” Before Montgomery can retort, John cuts him off, voice shaking with exhaustion and anger. “Please leave. I’ve nothing more to say. I’m rather tired and I think I can afford some rest, wouldn’t you say?”

“O-of course, Doctor Watson.” Montgomery scurries out like some sort of rat caught staring down a housecat. John has never craved silence and solitude more. He has grown rather used to loneliness and being alone as of late.

 

The next time he wakes up, it is not Harry by his side, but Sherlock Holmes, and his eyes _insist_ that what he’s seeing is real, but his mind _insists_ with equal fervor that this is one of the many symptoms of his impending death.

He could say many things to the detective, but nothing quite reaches audibility. The beeping of the heart rate monitors steadily increases, and the beads of sweat collect at the neckline of his hospital gown. The wheezing has returned and quite suddenly, John Watson feels as though he’s made out of rubber.

“John, for God’s sake, calm down, _please_. You’re going to hurt yourself—you can’t stress yourself this way, it will only impede your recovery.” Sherlock grasps his bruised and bandaged shoulders, an act which makes John think of rusted chains wrapping around his arms and he panics. Sherlock is repeating his name over and over again, a weary mantra, and John hates that he’s crying because that makes this hallucination the victor. John knows he’s caved to his mind’s flight of imagination when Sherlock wraps his long arms around John and presses John’s face to his own shoulder, still repeating his name in an attempt to calm him.

“Why are you here?” He chokes out. “I saw you die—I took your pulse. Your eyes were open and-and I saw…I saw you fall. There was…I couldn’t and still…I can’t stop seeing blood…there was blood and I went to your _funeral_ ; I-I saw the casket and the gravestone; I went every week.”

“I know. I saw you.” That’s only partially a lie. Whenever Sherlock was available and in London, Sherlock _had_ seen John at the quiet cemetery more often than he’d have liked. “I told you that I was a fraud and you didn’t believe me.”

“You great bloody git, you fucking _bastard_ , you tried to make me believe you were a goddamn liar.”

“I did lie to you.”

“Why would you do this?” He whispers into the cotton of Sherlock’s shirt. “Why would you come back now?”

“Are you certain I’m not a projection of your subconscious? You’ve been through a trauma, after all. You saw me die, just like you said.”

“I don’t know anything.”

“Now who is telling lies, John?” Sherlock looks at him quizzically. “You possess far more knowledge within you than I could ever even hope to acquire, to deduce, to investigate. You have the peculiar capability to contain the world within you. You—”

The punch did not hurt as much as it could have, Sherlock knows, and it’s heartbreaking that John cannot put his full force into the blow that interrupts him. Sherlock does not even fall off the side of the bed, simply whips back a bit, more for John’s sake than from the actual clout. It doesn’t draw blood, and it will probably bruise only minimally, if at all. Still, Sherlock knows that John can punch him properly when he’s recovered and returns to Baker Street.

“You goddamn berk,” John says, pulling Sherlock and holding him close, as if he fears the thin man might disappear at any given moment. “Don’t you ever do that again. Even if I’ve long gone.”

“John, I don’t understand. Why are you crying?” But John doesn’t respond, only buries himself further into Sherlock’s shirt, so when he doesn’t receive an answer, Sherlock tucks his chin and nose into John’s hair ( _smells like antiseptic, medicine, sweat and iron—archive that)_ and holds him as tight as he can. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He repeats because friends apologize and let the other know that they are loved even if it _should_ go unspoken; whether or not John hears him (and all that is unsaid) is irrelevant, because Sherlock is saying it now and he truly means it.

Both men’s greatest fear is that the other one will disappear again and leave him alone.

Mycroft Holmes makes a quiet but not-inconspicuous _ahem_ from the doorway. Sherlock glares at his brother; John simply falls back. He hasn’t been awake for more than ten minutes in at least three days, and his mind is going too quickly to sustain him for much longer.

“What do you want?” Sherlock asks with vitriol dripping through his words.

“As touching as this, I’ve simply come to pay my respects to Doctor Watson. I’ve some rather pertinent topics to cover with him currently.”

“Then say what you will and leave. This is your fault anyway.”

“Sherlock.” John says quietly and goes unnoticed.

“You couldn’t even protect him like I asked you to. I died so he would be safe and look what you managed to do; don’t you have _any_ idea about how important your job was? For God’s sake, Mycroft, look at him. If the punch I’ve just received is any indicator, I can’t imagine what blow you’ll receive once he’s recovered.”

Before he can continue his tirade, the be-tubed almost-human on the hospital bed whispers up to him, “Sherlock, please would you get me some tea?”

John has never asked Sherlock to get him tea, and that very fact surprises him. Well. There will be time for that later. Now, they should be—they _need_  to be together.

“What, John? Absolutely not, I’m staying here—besides, you can’t even _have_ tea. You haven’t been able to eat anything at all—”

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing that you _drink_ tea, then. I’m a doctor too, Sherlock, I know what I can and cannot have. Please. I haven’t had a cuppa, quality notwithstanding, in at least a week. _Please_.”

Sherlock has a debt he owes to John, and he supposes that cups of tea are as good a way as any to repay it. So Sherlock stalks out, suspecting that there is something clandestine about to take place but deciding not to mention it for John’s sake.

Now it is only John Watson and Mycroft Holmes in the shaded hospital room.

“I suppose I have you to thank for the private room.” John rasps.

“No, actually, it was Sherlock who insisted, though I’m sure I would have had you placed in a single-occupancy room regardless of his intervention. I rather think that it was unnecessary for his incessant badgering. The cooperation of the medical staff here would have been guaranteed after some careful donations on the part of the Holmes family.”

“Ah.” The wheezing is getting to be pronounced. “He doesn’t know, does he?”

“No. We thought it best, under the circumstances—”

“We?”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade and I, though Mrs. Hudson agrees with us as well, as does your sister.”

“How long have we known?”

“It was evident to the doctors immediately following your surgery. Your white blood cell levels indicated infection. The bloodwork only confirmed the worst.”

“Hm. So melodramatic from you, Mycroft.”

“For what it’s worth, Doctor Watson, I am sorry. For everything.”

“What is there for you to-to be sorry for? I was…the one who managed to fail spectacularly.” He puts his head in his hands. “She loved me and I couldn’t even keep her safe.”

“You killed one of her murderers. Under the circumstances—”

“It…did not matter at all.” He leans back. “And…Moriarty.”

“He is dead.”

“How?”

“Sherlock was rather anxious to do it himself, but out of respect for you, I did the deed myself.” Mycroft glances back at the door. “He shot Moran, though. Perhaps…you recall? I would think not.”

“I don’t really remember much from that last bit. I thought I was hallucinating.” He whistles through his teeth. “Who is Moran? Sebastian, then? Seb?”

“Yes, I suppose you were not quite aware of his identity. Colonel Sebastian Moran, and I assure you, it was not hallucinated. Sherlock considered him to be the second-most dangerous man in London.” He pauses. “He considered you to be the first-most dangerous.” He coughs and regains his poise. “Moran’s death was all too quick, in my opinion, though expedition was necessary, given the situation.”

“We have both killed for each other now.”

“My brother seems to require such extreme action, all the time.” Mycroft looks at the doctor as though he’s made of paper. “Though it’s unclear, Doctor Montgomery’s prognosis, as bleak as it is, allows for three or four days before your organs begin to fail you.”

“I don’t know why I would have ever expected discretion from you, Mycroft.”  He nods. “Sherlock will have to learn eventually…and I’d like for him to hear it from me. I believe you can manage that?”

“Of course.”

“He’s going to want power of attorney. Don’t let him have it. He’s going to be stubborn about it, too, and he’ll beg me and he’ll beg you, but it’s not worth it. It’s not worth trying to prolong the inevitable.”

“Doctor Watson—”

“I think you can call me John, Mycroft. Surely you’ve earned that much.”

“John…you seem considerably—”

“Accepting? Forgiving? Well-adjusted?” There’s a bark of a laugh that gives way into a brief coughing fit. Mycroft tries to ignore the drops of blood on the hospital gown. _Sherlock will certainly notice that_. “I had a week in a goddamn concrete box with a couple of experienced killers, Mycroft; I’ve come to accept that I am going to die sooner rather than later.”

Mycroft will not let on that he has experienced that particular brand of fatalism, albeit over a decade ago. “Surely you feel something towards…it. You must feel something.”

“For Christ’s sake, Mycroft, stop trying to be delicate. I’ve got enough pitying from the doctors. I don’t want or expect it from you.” He puffs out his cheeks and presses his lips together in irritation, in a habitual way that might be comical had it not been so pitiful.

“I assure you, I had no intention of being delicate—if it was interpreted that way, then you were mistaken. I am simply…gathering data.”

“On what?”

“The range of human emotion whilst encountering death. Especially one’s own.”

“Why, for fuck’s sake, would you need something like that?”

“Death is the great equalizer, Doctor Watson. As someone well-versed in medicine and trained on the battlefield, surely you understand that.”

“N-no, no. I’m not as stupid as you two might think sometimes, but I will _never_ , ever understand you.”

Mycroft does not respond, and only breaks eye contact once. When his gaze returns, it looks distant. Perhaps sad doesn’t quite cut it—that’s too simplistic for him, but he is far away, thinking of other things, beyond this room—if John Watson could explain what goes through a Holmes man’s mind, worlds would have opened up to him, but he cannot.

“I have nothing more to discuss with you, Doctor Watson. Best of luck. I do not know that I will be seeing you again. For what it’s worth, I am sorry.” He takes a deep breath. “Tell him, won’t you?”

“Yes.” John can’t say much other than that. He simply, exists and nothing more, and that is withering away in excruciating amounts as well—whatever “that” is.

He sees Mycroft Holmes step out of the hospital room and stop. He sees Sherlock give him a contemptuous glare for reasons John cannot imagine. He sees Sherlock enter, holding a Styrofoam cup of tea from the canteen and hold it out for him. He sees his non-broken hand reach out to take the cup from Sherlock and he stares into it.

“All right?” Sherlock asks him, watching for signs of _something_ (displeasure? Discomfort?). “I expect Mycroft was adequately civil just now.”

“He apologized.” John said. “To the both of us.”

“Rightly so. It took the fat lard long enough.”

“This wasn’t his fault, you know. I don’t know why he apologized at all. He’s not the one who did this.”

“If not his fault, then whose?” Sherlock huffs, irritation furrowing his brow. John sighs. He’s far too tired to deal with an annoyed Sherlock.

“I don’t know. Moriarty’s, I guess. And Moran’s. And mine, I suppose—I’m at fault too.” John puts his hands over his face, creating a shield between him and Sherlock and Sherlock _does not like that_ , because he’s spent over three years distancing himself from everything and everyone he knew and loved, so goddammit, he doesn’t deserve this; he’s been working so hard—he’s been so good. 

The irritation gives way to panicked attempts at comfort. Sherlock takes John’s hands and forcibly pushes them away from his face, which must hurt, but Sherlock doesn’t care enough to stop. John’s crying again, and Sherlock knows that when John is crying, Sherlock might start to cry again too, but one of them needs to be strong, and it can’t be John like it usually had been, but Sherlock hates everything that’s happening right now ( _it wasn’t supposed to be this way_ , he thinks).

“Stop it, stop it, leave me alone, Sherlock,” John’s repeating it, but then it becomes muffled by the fabric of Sherlock’s shirt ( _they always hurt the medics in war,_ he thinks. _It’s good strategy to take out the healers before they can save lives. Demoralizes and disheartens comrades when the man designated to save their lives is injured violently, horribly, irreparably)._ “I could have saved her. I should have saved her. She didn’t know…she never knew…”

“What didn’t she know?” He’s confused now, but he says it softly. He knows he shouldn’t find this pleasant, holding a broken John in his arms as he breaks apart further, like he’s the only thing keeping John together in this world, but it is pleasant, and that disturbs him. 

“ _You_. She never knew you.” John sounds bitter now, angry, far too angry for someone so weak, but it’s a restrained sort of anger. He tries to break out of Sherlock’s vice grip; for fear of hurting him, Sherlock lets him. “How could you have done it, Sherlock? And how could you have come _back_? It was because you were already returning, wasn’t it, then? They couldn’t have let you come back to someone happy and healthy—or at least, something near to it. But _you_. You just had to keep playing the game, didn’t you? You couldn’t let them win, couldn’t admit defeat, you just had to keep fighting. And you’ve taken her, too—and she was innocent. She meant nothing to you and Moriarty and _everything_ to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? You’ve had purpose. You weren’t made useless these past three years.” He takes a deep breath. “Do you know how painful it was? There were days I thought I’d rather die than get out of bed, have to limp about like some sort of fucking invalid, hobble along being pitied by old ladies, go to the surgery and listen to normal people drawl on about their normal lives when they had _no fucking idea_ that each of them helped to—and the newspapers, the fucking newspapers, they wouldn’t have to talk about you at all to remind me that—they were liars, and you tried to lie to me, you tried to make me _believe_ you, and for what?”

“John, he was going to kill you.”

“Well, looks like he’s won that battle.” He doesn’t register what he’s said; neither of them does. Sherlock is hardly keeping up with the words as they tumble from his bruised and cut mouth, he’s focusing on John’s expressions and trying to dissect them and understand them scientifically and log them away because he can’t interpret anything unless he does so scientifically. “Christ, Sherlock,” he breathes. “Haven’t you realized yet? I would die for you, a thousand times and then some, because you’re too special to lose.”

When Sherlock kisses him, John wants to cry again because the last time he was kissed was eight days ago, a quick kiss “hello” from his fiancée as he returned home from the surgery, fifteen minutes before she was murdered, and the person she was killed for is now. He was tired, soaked from the violent rain outside, and he’d placed his hand lightly on her hip and the other snaked around her neck, underneath her hair, the tendrils from her messy bun hanging loose around her shoulders, pulls her close to him, tries to kiss her deeper, but she smiles under his lips and shakes her head, _no, sorry, love, not now, go make some tea, let’s watch some telly, but maybe later._ And he’s slightly disappointed, of course he is, but he’s content to wait, because he loves her more than after-work sex or anything else, really.That was it, nothing more: He loved her, and he still loves her, even though she’s dead because of him, and his incapability, and above the guilt and the fact his best friend is kissing him and the fact that his death is looming around the corner, waiting _, he loves her_.

_You were so close to being happy, John. You’re always so close, and then—_

John shuts down because he is torn. He has never cheated before, and even though this isn’t technically cheating because Mary is dead, it’s too soon, _too soon_ for someone new, someone old—it doesn’t matter. Mary is dead. Mary is dead. He loves her and Mary is dead.  

Sherlock has stopped kissing his lips and instead buries his nose in John’s hair, holds him close like a teddy bear apt to be ripped away from a child at any second _(“you’re too old to play with toys, boy.”)_. He doesn’t notice that John has fallen asleep; by the time the nightmares make themselves known outside John’s subconscious, Sherlock has moved back onto his perch on the chair by the bed. He jolts up at the sound of fear, hawk-like and suddenly predatory.

“John,” he says, hesitantly reaching out a hand to touch the man’s forehead. The doctor’s eyes are fluttering, open but not cognizant, and his lips are moving but there aren’t words that Sherlock can string together, but he hears his own name, and Mary’s, and “ _I love you, don’t leave me_ ”, repeated, punctuated by the sounds of fright and pain unbecoming of a decorated war hero. John is sweating, the watercolor smudges underneath his eyes a deep blue-purple, like bruises, and he’s shaking a bit ( _withdrawal_ ), and when John doesn’t respond to his name, Sherlock gets onto the bed next to him, wraps his arms around him as though the detective is the long black coat Sherlock often wears and Sherlock is not himself, but John _is_ Sherlock, and they rock as one body, suffering in tandem. Under his breath, Sherlock sings, lilting and wistful, _“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”_

And watching, from the window, Greg Lestrade feels as though he’s about to be sick, and the only thing in his mind is the word “Annabel”.

 

When the detective inspector returns some hours later, he isn’t sure what to make of the scene in front of him. He’d heard John’s repeated insistence that he wasn’t gay, and he’d believed him because he was incredulous of a relationship with Sherlock Holmes regardless of the nature of it. He needed Sherlock to help him save lives, stop crimes, and he’d come to terms with the personal blow, the damage he’d suffered when Sherlock died. In spite of the momentary doubt, he knows that any hit Lestrade took was worth protecting the people of the city he loved. And yet, to him, Sherlock is neither machine nor soulless, because he has a soul that is a black box. It records every word, every strike, provides all the facts to him to investigate and sort out post-catastrophe. The soul within Sherlock was supposed to be small, dark and hidden away, but here it is now, drawn up from the depths of the wreckage that has become their collective reality. Here it is now, surrounded by a sleeping consulting detective, splayed out and fragile on a hospital bed, because somehow, John Watson shared and _became_ Sherlock’s soul.

Lestrade knows all this, and he knows John Watson is quiet and patient and gentle and kind, stoic and intelligent and yet, he is special. So perhaps it should not have been surprising to see the thin man curled up, fast asleep on the hospital bed, next to his dying (friend? Soldier? Partner? Life?). Yes, John is special. But he’s fading; he has been since the day in May that began early in the morning with a smattering of blood on the sidewalk, and this is the last twilight of a good man’s life.

John is awake, very much in pain, even though he’s drugged to the brink of consciousness, but when Greg Lestrade walks in, he tries to smile warmly, ignoring the definite air of awkwardness, but he’s holding a finger to his lips with humor in his eyes.

“He was like this when I woke up a half an hour ago,” He says faintly, without precursor or greeting. “It’s been a while since he’s slept; don’t wake him.”

“You’re…he’s…” Lestrade looks more haggard than usual, and John only looks tired, only it is a peaceful sort of serenity. He’d heard from Mycroft and Harry an account of John’s simple acceptance of his prognosis, but is now unnerved by the resignation within his dark blue eyes. There’s no light in them, no vivacity, only darkness. Out of the two men, he’d never expected John to be the shadowed one and Sherlock to be the one who tries desperately to keep the light alive.

“I think this makes him feel safe. Like if he’s here, I won’t disappear again. If it makes him happy now, I don’t really care what people think.” He puts his bandaged hand on Sherlock’s dark head as he rasps. “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I’m gone; fuck, I don’t know what’s going to happen when he finds out. Right now, we’re both breathing and we’re both here, and that’s more than we’ve had for a long time. I’ll take what I can get.”

“You said…”

“Damn what I said!” He snaps, hissing. When Sherlock stirs slightly, the comforting hand returns. This makes Lestrade smile minutely, for _this_ is the John Watson he’d missed for three years, the doctor who healed Sherlock Holmes without even knowing he might have been broken. “Does it even matter? I’m going to die before this week is over, does it even really matter that I’m not gay or he’s asexual or that we’re both men?”

“But you’re not gay.”

“Christ, Lestrade, why does this even matter? Why do you even care?”

This gives Lestrade pause. “Because I see the way you are around each other,” He says, finally. “You’re not the one who has to pick up the pieces of Sherlock Holmes once you’re gone.” He looks over the men and sighs, holding his head in his hands. “I told you how it was when I first found Sherlock, and I mean, _found_ him. Because he was dying. He was just too narcissistic to kill himself with his own hand, but he was too bored and miserable to find some way to keep himself alive.”

“You’ve told me this before.”

“When we were both pissed drunk and grieving for a man who’s fucking sleeping in your goddamn lap right now! Fuck, John, just—fuck it, goddamn—for Christ’s sake, why’s it got to be this way? Just—”

He pushes his face into his hand and then folds in on himself. He hadn’t had any time to cry privately, consider the gravity of the collapse of both John and Sherlock, but now, he sees the weight reflected in the bags underneath the broken doctor’s eyes and the exhausted contentment on the detective’s face and realizes that Moriarty had won his game. Since the moment Moriarty had faked his death over three years ago, he’d won. Because he’d made certain that Sherlock and John would never be happy again. They’d been so close, too. They’d seen a glimpse of it, before Moriarty’s first appearance with the bombs of Baker Street, and for months, they grasped desperately, playing at happiness, and perhaps even believing that they were so, but they’d had Moriarty’s shadow eclipsing them. It is now clear, with hindsight being what it is, that Irene Adler had prophesized the future. The depression, the misery, the failure—it would appear only a few months after her death.

Dartmoor, tainted with fear and doubt, that too, forecasted the future. Betrayal, disbelief, entrapment, deception. 

Mycroft had known of the impending fall after the Adler affair. He’d seen it. The elder Holmes brother had told Lestrade in a bizarre fit of guilt, after the funeral. Lestrade now wonders how sincere the admission had been; if he’d known about Sherlock’s survival, and then, as he presses his head into the starched hospital bed, near Sherlock’s knee, he realizes that he doesn’t care, because _he_ should have known, at least after the incident at Dewer’s Hollow. It is his fucking job to protect them, and he should have been able to see what was coming and try to avoid it, negate the effects, do _something_ other than playing a goddamn fool. Hell, even Mycroft probably allowed Sherlock to gallivant about Devon without reprimand as penance, or perhaps a preemptive apology, only sending Lestrade out after him in desperation. Because he was sworn to protect and serve. To save.

But he works homicide. What is there to save once the worst has occurred?

It _is_ his job to protect. And he’s failing at it even with every breath John takes, because the simple intake of oxygen, cyclical and natural and automatic, should not be some sort of small miracle, a victory.

“Greg,” John says softly, removing his hand from Sherlock’s head and onto Lestrade’s neck, and Lestrade thinks perhaps crying in front of the doctor is unpleasant, anathema to what he’d previously believed and been raised on ( _“Greg, real men don’t cry, at least not in public. Be strong for your brothers and sister,”_ his father had told him at Gran’s funeral as his mother held back tears and his father bit his lip during eulogies. Greg remembers biting his knuckles until they were swollen and bleeding to be strong, _be strong._ ) Yes, this is wrong, but it’s happening. Besides, leaving his friend’s side to cry privately would be wasting dwindling time, already unstable and unpredictable, and neither Greg nor John squanders something so small.

“What am I going to do?” He mumbles through the folds of the tidy sheets and over Sherlock’s’ bony shoulders, directly at John. “What am I supposed to do? Goddammit, John, I don’t know how…”

John’s voice is sharp. “Take care of him, Greg. He needs me, but he can’t…I can’t be there. You can help him. You’ve helped him before. Saved him, more than I ever could’ve. I’m a liability. You can protect him. You have to take care of him. Make sure he doesn’t go back to drugs…For me. When I can’t. Take care of him.”

“What about you? Do you think? Who’s going to take care of you?”

“No one takes care of me. I won’t need it. I’ll be dead, Greg. You’re not making any sense.”

“Doesn’t mean you won’t need taking care of.” Greg sighs. “I was raised Catholic, but it doesn’t really make sense for me to go to Mass on Sundays and sit there lying to air. Besides, the damn mobile would go off in the middle of sermon and can you imagine the dirty looks grandmothers would give me?”

“So you don’t believe in God, then?”

“Nah. Well—I don’t know. I like to think there’s something, maybe someone, out there. Something bigger than us, but I just can’t believe He gives a damn about any of us.” Lestrade realizes that he might be offending John, who had never once spoken of God since the day of the not-quite drugs bust (January 30, 2010, the day Sherlock and John went from hopeless nebulae, dying before they were born, alone, to being unmistakably tethered together.) “What about you, John?”

“God meant something to me once, I suppose. Like you. But I don’t have much need for God now. I don’t much believe in deathbed confessions.”

“But…what do you think comes afterward?”

“I’m not afraid of being alone, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife or Heaven or God, but I’m not the one who’s afraid of the unknown.” He looks down fondly at Sherlock, who is breathing evenly. Not stirred by conversation. “Lestrade, tell me honestly. Moriarty sent him something. He knows.”

“Knows what?”

“He saw what Moriarty did to me. Maybe…not all of it, but some of it.”

Greg looks at him; his eyes are burning and he feels heavy and loaded. He only nods. John sighs and his face crumples a bit. He heaves and struggles to keep his composure, though Greg doesn’t understand why he would even attempt—it shouldn’t matter, but John is a soldier, and not just that, an _officer,_ the one whose subordinates depended on to keep calm and impassive and brave in the face of unimaginable horror.

But those deaths were violent, bloody, and this is just pathetic. This is a sorry state of man. It’s noble in a pitiful sort of way, this man trying to protect his best friend from the torture he’d endured, but it’s also cruel that John would keep Sherlock in the dark about the prognosis.

Greg says nothing, asks nothing, has nothing to say at all, because soon, John will be nothing. Nothing begets nothing.

 _There is no God_ , Lestrade thinks as he leaves the room an hour later, at the first signs of Sherlock waking. _No God is cruel enough to allow so much suffering in one room._

They had such potential. Such love and life. He forces a patient smile, a polite goodbye, knowing full-well that this is probably the last time he will see John alive. _And the worst part is, they could have beaten this if they’d just had an inch. Just one little bit of hope would have carried them_.

 

Sherlock knows the face John wears as he wakes up. It is the same face he’d had when Sherlock told him of the death of the old woman in Yorkshire. Not quite stunned, but tragedy in the capillaries and veins of his face, ready to break apart but attempting desperately to be tough and undisturbed.

“What’s happened? What’s wrong? Are you feeling quite well?” Sherlock asks, harried, with panic seeping into his syllables.

“Sherlock, please. I can’t have you like this.” His voice is barely audible, and it is so forlorn, so Sherlock tries to swallow down his fear.

“Like what?”

“Up in arms. I don’t know. Manic. I need you to listen to me.”

“I always listen to you.”

“No, you don’t. But I need you to do so now. This is important.”

Sherlock looks at him curiously, but relents. “Yes. I am listening.”

“There’s an infection.”

“It is to be expected, given the situation. So take antibiotics. We’ll be here longer. We can—”

“What did I _just_ say about listening?”

“Fine. I will listen. No interruptions, I presume?”

“You would presume correctly.”

“Go on, then. An infection.”

“Right now, my liver is failing me. My temperature has not been below 38.7 degrees since I arrived in the hospital. It’s been hovering at around 39.3 for the past few hours and I can—there’s blood in my urine; my kidneys are going now, too. I’m tachycardic; I can barely think, and I can’t make sense of anything that I see. My lungs are filling with blood and fluids. Do you understand?”

Sherlock only nods.

“The infection has been taking its toll for days now. I had it long before they found me. Probably at least two days. So tell me what you know.”

“Septicemia. Blood poisoning. The final stages of which are characterized by high temperature, widespread organ failure, pulmonary embolism. Your breathing is quick and shallow. Symptoms of acute respiratory distress syndrome. How long have you known? Did your doctor arrive while I was asleep? You should have waked me. What is the prognosis? Antibiotic regimen—I imagine we’ll be here for weeks. But—”

“You’re not understanding. Sherlock, there will be no antibiotic regimen.”

“Then your doctors are morons. That’s the treatment for sepsis.”

“Sherlock—Sherlock!” He huffs, coughing. Sherlock politely waits with mild irritation, but the fit goes on too long, and concern now takes the place of impatience. “You have to—you have to _listen_. I’m trying to-to tell you, there can’t be…there’s nothing…to be done.”

The silence that follows is almost painful. Other than the wheezing and the slightly-too-fast beeping of the heart rate monitor, there is nothing.

“How long have you known?”

“Since I woke up.”

“That was two and a half days ago.” His hands are shaking. “And Harry?”

“She knows. She was told first. I wasn’t conscious yet.”

“And Lestrade knows, presumably.”

“Yes. He does.”

“And Mycroft too? Is that what you wanted to speak to him about? When you sent me out to get you _tea_?”

“I needed to get my affairs in order.”

“What affairs trumped telling me? And why would you fucking tell me now?”

“You needed to know. You just didn’t need to know _then_.”

Sherlock stands up, perhaps a little too quickly, perhaps a little too closely, perhaps a little too violently, because the characteristic flinch and the spike in the heart rate tell him what he should have already known. _Another thing I’ve never asked him and I’ll never hear from him_.

“Why would you do this?”

“Because I wanted to protect you.”

“I don’t need _protecting_. Especially not from you.”

“It’s not me that I was worried about.” He looks at him gravely. “How did you know what to sing?”

“What?”

“You knew what to sing. What my mum used to sing to me when I had nightmares. You sang it to me just a little while ago. How did you know? I know Harry doesn’t remember, even when she’s sober.”

“He was not exactly silent during your containment. He kept in touch.”

“You watched. Greg said so. He sent videos.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“No, I’m not. You sang to me because…”

“You sang it. When he drugged you. To comfort yourself. I don’t know that you were aware of what you were doing or saying.” He shakes his head. “John, I—when I kissed you, I meant it. Even if you couldn’t hear me. You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t let me have what I wanted because you wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences later, would you? Do you really hate me that much?”

“No— _no_ , Jesus, Sherlock, _no_. I didn’t do anything like that.” He sighs, because it’s not _entirely_ a lie. But he has no idea what it means now, so soon after Mary’s death, so near to his own. “I meant it too. I love you.”

There they are. Three small, insignificant words, threaded together in an almost-lie, because it’s true—he _does_ love Sherlock, in a way he can’t understand in the midst of tragedy and change, and he knows Sherlock doesn’t understand emotions the way that someone like Mary or Molly or Greg might, but he doesn’t know if he means “I love you” in the same way Sherlock interprets them. It’s too late to matter now. John will not survive much longer, and neither will Sherlock, not in this way.

Sherlock kisses John again, not awkward, but frantic, hopeless, and John kisses him back this time and they both are fighting back tears and failing. The kiss tastes salty, and Sherlock tastes iron in John’s mouth and can only think of _blood, blood, so much blood_ , when they found John lying in a pool of it, covered, suffocating, lacking, losing, needing it.

It is exhausting, they both discover, loving someone, quite literally, to death.

 

His breaths taper off, sometime in the early morning, just before sunrise, or perhaps during. In big letters on his chart, “DNR” is marked, and Sherlock curses John Watson for issuing such an order, and the medical staff for respecting a man’s wish to die peacefully, without useless attempts to save a life far gone.

It begins with a coughing fit more violent than the last, and it ends with a wheeze, and then a whimper, and then only the continual beep of the flatlined heart monitor, and John is still. His eyes are closed, and he could be asleep, except Sherlock knows that he has nightmares, and so he presses his lips into John’s roughly, and then kisses his forehead more gently and holds him there, because this is the goodbye John never got, but deserved.

Not even a goodbye.

Not even an “I love you”.

Not a kiss before he left.

Nothing. Only nothing.

 

The funeral is well-attended, and John is dressed in his formal blues and it makes Sherlock sick to see the medals that John hated so much pinned to his lapel, but it also makes his chest swell a bit, and perhaps that is pride (he has never felt it for someone other than himself, not really, not without John to help him make sense of it.)

The month is April. It is not raining. April is the cruelest month. 

He slowly returns to life, and _of course_ , the media has a field day of speculation and inquiries when he does so, and he takes on case after case, working himself into the ground, which concerns Lestrade. Never in the Detective Inspector’s life would he have thought that Sherlock Holmes would be taught to care, and would be taught not to care, and sit still for so long. 

He does not go back to drugs, because John would be upset with that. Sometime before he died, John had begged (no, John doesn’t _beg_ , but he’d asked, and so Sherlock had listened, because John had so few words left to him at the end) Sherlock not to go back to drugs, to try and take care of himself, not to let his death tear down everything Sherlock had worked so hard for.

When Sherlock’s cases become more staggered, when he becomes not so relentless, Greg Lestrade feels a bit more at ease. _He’s started to accept it, and he’s allowed himself to go back to normal, finally._ But this is not normal, because there is no John, only the deceitful face of hope and despair. He walks in darkness, both in daytime and nighttime, although he does not hope to turn again, does not hope, thinks only of birth and dying and the perpetual illness in between, wishes for the latter and he does not wish to wish these things, perhaps for John’s sake.

Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson travel every weekend to the Watson homestead in Sussex to see John where he is buried, near his family. He can’t help but think that it is more pleasant to have been buried there, near people he loves, than in a military cemetery next to his brothers-in-arms, because while he may love them, they haunt his nightmares too.

He has not yet gotten used to referring to John in past tense.

He never will.

Greg visits as often as he can, sporadically, and sometimes he brings Sally or Molly or Dimmock with him, just because he likes company and John was a social person.

Mycroft has visited once or twice in the past six months, once with Sherlock, and it ended in bitterness for both parties.

Sherlock has spent the better part of his many waking hours since John’s death trying to make sense of what is _real_ and what is _imaginary_ in his mind.

In his mind, John is the organized chaos of invasion mixed with the precision of medical science and proper cuppas. He is a rag doll made of cross-stitch and crosshairs, so small and loving and gentle and close.

In his mind, John says “I love you” a thousand times, a thousand ways, in a thousand languages he’s never known, and he means it each time.

In his mind, they grow old together, walk hand-in-hand down cobblestones and watch every universe that splinters off from theirs speed by them, but they have lived their lives in fast-motion, so now they are content to sit amongst John’s rosebushes and Sherlock’s experiments and observe.

In reality, John is dead, and he is alone; they both are, in their own way, buried.

In reality, the little lion man filled with gunpowder and courage and heroism, of honor and compassion, the angel—he died in a dark room, not valiantly, not saving the lives of others, not in the line of duty so that his mother or wife or sister or perhaps even Sherlock could have received a folded flag and heard stories about how _his_ John died for the greater good, serving and protecting.

In reality, Sherlock does not want to suffer the slings and arrows of their mutual fates, life is now only a series of motions. There is no puzzle. There is no Great Game, but more importantly, there is no John.

Lestrade is not surprised when he climbs the seventeen steps to 221b and sees the open door with Mycroft’s assistant standing, for once disconnected from her BlackBerry (Persephone, she’s been since they’ve found John. A proper mold of Mycroft, she is. Of course, that’s what she’s been trained to be).

“Detective Inspector,” she says, and that’s all, with doe-like brown eyes, and he sees for the first time how young she is. She’s younger than Sally by at least five years, probably as old as Molly Hooper, if not younger. Regardless, she’s far too young to have to deal with the world on such a level.

He enters the living room and feels sick, with the tangy smell of recent death lingering, not too heavily, in the air. Mycroft is standing by the window, staring out of it at nowhere in particular and his face discloses no emotion whatsoever.

The gun is John’s, the British Army Browning L9A1 illegally retained for years and years, the one that killed Jefferson Hope, shot at the Golem, was trained on a bomb, shot at nightmares, took the life of a consulting detective ( _the_ consulting detective, the only one in the world).

He shot himself not in the head, which would have been quick and mostly painless, but in the heart. It makes sense. He’s a genius; he would not have willingly damaged his brain, _ever_ , and even in death, Lestrade respects his brilliant mind. There is a syringe on the table, above the note, but the vial is still full, and Sherlock’s limp arm is barren of puncture wounds. Some small solace.

“Mrs. Hudson has been visiting her sister in Buckinghamshire for the past few days.” Mycroft says, apropos of nothing, not turning to look at Lestrade. He’s smoking; the copper within Greg wants to admonish him, but the addict within him wants to indulge, and this is a day for addictions. Mycroft notices and offers him a cigarette. “I hate the habit; it’s vile and so very plebeian. Still, there is something to be said for the elegance of cigarette smoke.”

He takes the cigarette, if only to keep from biting his knuckle in childhood habit. Lestrade, with a carefully gloved hand, picks up the note. It is simple, in spidery handwriting betraying shaking hands.

_Tell John that I’m sorry I broke our promise. –SH_

Neither man knows what that promise was verbatim, but they both can guess. This was the way it was always going to be. They do not exist without the other.

Mycroft now turns to Lestrade and glances over him wearily. “My brother had an addictive personality, and I always knew that his addiction would one day take his life. The question was invariably which one it would eventually be. I have to thank you, Detective Inspector.”

“Me? Why?” Lestrade is tired of being tricked and toyed with by the Holmes brothers, so much so that he can’t tell that Mycroft is being sincere for once.

“You did what I never could. You connected with him.” He sighs. “I always was left to clean up the messes my little brother made.”

“I wouldn’t call this a mess.”

Mycroft raises one eyebrow, unfazed. “No? Then what you call this, then?”

“A bookend.” Gregory Lestrade says, and he and his cigarette leave the room, past Persephone, and sits on the thirteenth step, trying to smoke with trembling hands. He knows he’s crying and his eyes are wide, and when he hears Sally Donovan and the other responders trudge up past him, he doesn’t register it until he hears Sally cry, _“Jesus Christ, Sherlock!”_ and then he smiles mirthlessly, because there’s always something in 221B that elicits that sort of reaction from her.

If, for every decision one makes, there is an alternate universe in which all the possible outcomes for that decision exists, then there must be a universe in which John and Sherlock were able to carry out their days in relative peace and comfort. Or that Lestrade remained with Annabel. Or perhaps one that never allowed John and Sherlock to meet, and saved both of them and killed both of them simultaneously.

Here. In 221B Baker Street, there are five people, three men and two women, and one is dead and the other four are colliding. Persephone Maris, neé Amelia Costas (once, this had been her name, but no longer; she hardly remembers a time when her name was not given to her by her own mind). Persephone travels headlong into a world she does not yet fully understand, under the tutelage of a man whose emotions have long been dissected away from his being. This man, Mycroft Holmes, who has never struggled with any topic of the mind other than the study of his brother. His brother, Sherlock Holmes, who is dead on the couch by his own hand with a borrowed gun, because life was simply not worth living anymore. Gregory Lestrade, who was the man who once saved Sherlock Holmes’ life and now failed at the second attempt, and has succumbed to the whims of his addiction as his sergeant attempts to maintain order. Sally Donovan, a woman younger than she seems beneath her rough exterior, she who now sees a man she had called “freak” and claimed she hated, a victim of suicide for the second time, and she has no idea how she feels about this at all.

This is what Sherlock Holmes wanted. He had never once intended to fulfill his promise to John, but perhaps, like John, he was only telling the other what he wanted to hear in the doctor’s final days. John was Sherlock’s world, and for the opposite, the same was true. From that moment on January 29, 2010, in one of St. Bartholomew’s labs, they were destined to be together, and become each other so completely that they would never be able to live apart.

Sherlock’s world ended six months ago, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Sherlock returns to that world, not with a whimper, but with a bang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm not sorry. 
> 
> **I don't want to hear reviews yelling at me for killing them off, like it's some cheap shot for emotionality, because I actually have a reason for everything I did, mostly based in the literature of T.S. Eliot.**
> 
> _EDIT 10/11/12: I have gotten my first two comments criticizing me for just that! I have a reason for everything I did. I can't do anything else for you. I gave you warnings in the author's notes. I gave you explanations in the author's notes and wrote an entire informal analysis for you guys. I categorized this under angst. I write because it's cathartic and therapeutic. This was never going to be a happy story that involves people being happy—I based it off something incredibly bleak. I'm not sure what else you expected, to be honest._
> 
> The next thing that will be uploaded is going to be before the epilogue but immediately after this chapter. It's the literary analysis and explanation for this fic, and some general housekeeping. It's important to the fic if you're upset with it, but it'll explain a lot of the little bits and it gives reasons for why I wrote it the way I did. Be on the lookout (which I just realized is what "BOLO" stands for in cop procedurals) for the epilogue. I'll get it done eventually.
> 
> The epilogue, though unwritten, does have a title: _Remember us not as lost, violent souls_
> 
> THERE IS MORE IN THIS UNIVERSE TO BE DONE, DONUT WORRY.   
> EDIT: THE EPILOGUE IS DONE AND UPLOADED
> 
> Fun fact: Whoever told you that you never forget how to ride a bike is a fucking liar. I forgot on my first day with a bike and made a fool of myself. So fuck that guy.


	10. Remember us not as lost, violent souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a tragedy in our midst, every day of every week of every year, and John and Sherlock's was only one of the many already past and the many yet to come. 
> 
> The epilogue, the conclusion to this series, which examines the repercussions of the events before on the survivors and how they fall on the shoulders of DI Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Not-Anthea, Mycroft Holmes and Molly Hooper. References to T.S. Eliot's "Ash Wednesday".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, sorry it took so long! College happened, almost-kind of-not really out of nowhere. But here we are, at the end of this hell-of-a-series-to-write fic. I really appreciate all of you who have read it and continue to read it and show your support. Unbetaed, ~8,000 words or 16 pages, with bits of Mystrade, a reference to possible Mythea, Molly/OMC (who is somewhat based off Martin Crieff shhhhhh). 
> 
> **Trigger warnings: Suicide and references to suicides and major character deaths as previously shown in the series, alcohol abuse, drunken detective inspectors, references to sexual assault and violence, more literary references, epitaphs, metaphors, old age and panic attacks.**
> 
> Thank you again for reading, and please feel free to kudo/bookmark and please, please, please review! I live for them. My tumblr is currently spookybellbeanie.tumblr.com, but usually tinibellbeanie.tumblr.com. I have some original content there under the tag "my-words", some of which might be adapted to be related to the Sherlock fandom and updated here. So keep an eye out!
> 
> I own nothing, as I recently sold my soul to the devil in exchange for some Top Ramen. Keep an eye out for the Poe-logues, too, one of which has already been written (Lestrade, "All the Night-Tide", which is about Lestrade pre-Sherlock and is inspired/influenced by Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee").

**_“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment that we’re not alone.” –Orson Welles_ **

Both men, twice dead, spent a majority of their too-short lives wandering through this realm of physical beings, lost, lost, completely lost. Now, they, who were so long separated, who travelled life alone, and now, at life’s long last and death’s release—they return to each other.

John is the first and is buried first in Sussex, where he’d grown up (he had tried to escape it too, and yet he is forever encased in the memory of his youth). He is buried near his mother, and he loved her, so it must mean _something_ to be near to her at last. He was a sentimental man, if nothing else, and _family is all we have in the end_ , Mrs Hudson had said, and she has always been so very keen on the idea of keeping loved ones close.

The Holmes family, too, has a family plot in Buckinghamshire near their country home—Mummy is buried there, and so too will Mycroft be buried alongside his ancestors (perhaps sooner, rather than later, at this point, but not as early as some might have guessed). Sherlock is not buried there because at the time of his death, he was no longer a Holmes. He was a Watson in life and died a Watson, and so he is interred with them.

They are buried far from the battlefield of their lives. There they rest, underneath a shady juniper tree that is home to a bee’s nest, a flurry of activity oddly reminiscent of that of 221B (sometimes, when Lestrade goes to visit on his bi-monthly pilgrimages, he says he’s visiting Baker Street. Everyone knows what he means; no one asks; he does not answer.)

Mrs Hudson visited every weekend—at first, with Sherlock standing silently by her side, watching the unstirred earth above John’s body, and then, after his death, sometimes alone, sometimes with Lestrade or that _dear_ Molly Hooper, but she dies not long after (three years? Five?). She, too, lived ever so slightly vicariously through the lives of others, in this case, John and Sherlock. Her life and lies alone were not enough to sustain her for long.

They said she shouldn’t live alone; they said she needed constant care.

They said she should contact her children ( _“did she have children?” “Not anymore, Doctor.”_ ) Or her husband ( _“a spouse?” “Good Lord, no.”_ ) Or anyone to stay with her in her ailing, older years _(“anyone to keep an eye on her, watch over her?” “She wouldn’t accept it—she’s a mother at heart. She must always take care of others and never accept care for herself.”_ )

It was a heart attack in the end that killed her, bless her—it just gave out. They said it would have been quick. They said, they said.

Mycroft was not close to her, but he came to her funeral after watching over her in her failing years, because she was important to his little brother, more family to him than his biological brother, and that made her important to him.

Mycroft understands the importance of family, and history, and ancestry and the family name, even if Sherlock did not.

The older Holmes wishes he could say he was surprised at the fate of the two people closet to him, of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, but he is not. Numb, yes (he is always numb to emotion; it is his defining feature.) He is ice, infinite and glorious in his reserve and resolve, and his little brother had followed his only friend into a land of unknown, the one thing that terrified Sherlock more than any snake-man or even the tedium of his own brilliant mind.)

He doesn’t know how he feels after Sherlock’s death. He knows he should feel a plethora of _human_ feelings—rage, guilt, grief, pity—but he has only ever known numbness. A deadness of emotions. So he goes to his work, throws himself into a life of strings and patterns and spies, nameless and bureaucratic.

In his drafty office in the dreary back corridors of Whitehall; he has set up a series of monitors. He observes, writes lengthy and detailed reports and files them away in cabinets, locks them, never to be seen again. He feels rather without purpose—he does not remember much before Sherlock ( _antebellum,_ he now calls it in the privacy of his own mind), only a life of illness and the great indoors. Newsprint, typecast words in foreign languages, nurses and governesses and doctors, but the feeling of a great absence in his world, and then, without preamble, suddenly, there was a small creature in a bassinet making strange noises that could be documented and observed—so similar to his reports now, only he held some sort of strange affection for the tiny thing.

Sherlock was all he had left of his mother and father, all he had left of his odd and rather isolated childhood, and he did love his brother; he hoped that Sherlock too loved him, even if it was only a fraction of the love he reserved for John or Lestrade or Mrs Hudson or Molly Hooper—Mycroft has never wanted for much, growing up to a wealthy family in a large home with servants and tutors and all the material things a small child could ever desire, but he has always been a rather lonely man (and he has always been a man—even as a child, his face was so grim and serious and set, like a stone).

Even though Mycroft Holmes learned from a very early age to pretend he was normal, to make alliances and call them friendships, to manipulate others through precise use of handsome smiles and courteous handshakes and meticulous and polite diction, Sherlock was always the slightest bit helpless. There was no moulding him or teaching him, no friends, and as lonely as Mycroft was and is, his solitude was flexible. Mycroft was willing and capable of being around other people with the façade of normalcy, but Sherlock, _Sherlock_ , no; he never mastered that particular skill. So Mycroft left. He left to a world that Sherlock could not appreciate, at Eton, rubbing shoulders with future prime ministers and MPs and cabinet members who he could place like chess pieces at will.

Sherlock understands chess theory far better than most, but in execution, he falls far behind Mycroft’s abilities. He could never abide by the sacrifice, could understand the logic but never the unpredictability of a self-taught foe, one who created tactics on the fly and made each game personal. Sherlock preferred blackjack and roulette, focusing on chances and numbers and probabilities rather than talent and tricks.

He whirls through paperwork and reports at breakneck speed, tries desperately to push from his mind the haunts of his daily life, tries desperately not to think of the ease with which his brother had succumbed to his desolation, without prelude of drug abuse or reckless behaviour—simply six months of resigned wavering between the profit and the loss of life, _“the dream-crossed twilight between birth and dying”_ , and Mycroft absently considers the ease with which he, too, could succumb, if not for the weight of the British nation on his shoulders.

He does not wish to wish these things, and yet.

And so he works, and works, and works, and does not sleep because that inspires dreams and nightmares, that which he wishes to reject, and he does not eat, because it fills him with emotion. The emptiness in his bones keeps him sane, keeps him focused—he does not need to cave to the whims of the body as Sherlock did. He followed not his brain, but his heart, wore it on his sleeve at the end, and he was a _Holmes_! Holmes keep their emotions and their hearts under lock and key within cells in the deep recesses of their minds. Always minds, always brains and intellectual—it’s not logical; it’s not rationale, and yet, and yet, and _yet_.

And yet Mycroft is becoming something he does not recognize, and he is afraid, but no one can know, because there is no one left.

            

Persephone sees Mycroft losing weight, sees the cold teacups and still-filled plates, and she sees him working himself, quite literally, to the bone. She will never be able to erase the image of Mycroft Holmes standing over his brother’s truly dead body, wondering if he’ll call his brother’s bluff like he did the first time, watching her omniscient, god-like employer, her boss, her epicentre, standing by idly as he crumbled and broke apart. She can erase her name and her history and rewrite her identity at will, but that, _that_ , she will never be able to get out of her mind.

“Cassandra,” Mr Holmes calls softly from his office. That is not her name. It has not been her name in months. She is Persephone. Always Persephone. Everything else is changing, but she is not.

She gets up anyway, as she always does, and brings him a fresh cup of tea, as she always does, and reminds him, _“Persephone, today, sir,”_ but does not remind him that she has been Persephone for some time now and Cassandra was last year, even, hands him the new tea, as she always does. She takes the old tea, untouched, and straightens some of the papers, and stands at attention, as she always does. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“I need you to collate these files regarding Detective Inspector Lestrade. These three histories I’ve had collected have flaws.”

“Of course. I’ll have Myers get right on that, sir.” She says.

“No, no, I think not. No, not Myers. Leventhal. Leventhal would be much better suited, I think. Myers, as charming as he thinks he might be, is rather disorganized, wouldn’t you say? Could we have him transferred, perhaps?”

“I’ll see to it, sir. Leventhal, then?”

“Yes, yes. Thank you. Now, please leave me be. I’m quite busy.” He waves her away, almost knocking the tea over; she moves it farther from where he might hit it. Five months ago, she had never seen him so distracted. Now, it is the norm.

She stands in the doorway for a minute, heart pounding, tears and words stuck in her throat, unbidden, unsaid and unshed. She wants to say _“Please, sir, you’re killing yourself this way,”_ she wants to say _“I can’t be you, I can’t do this without you,”_ she wants to say _“You’re all I have and I can’t lose you, please”_ and she wants to say _“I loved you then, and you never even knew, and now you’re dying and you’ll never know”_. She doesn’t tell him anything. She turns away and thinks about David Leventhal, instead.

Leventhal has been dead for three months. They went to the funeral together and said kind words to his wife even though Mycroft was only saying words she put in his mouth. 

She does the collation herself. He does not notice when she places the completed reports on his desk.

Persephone knows she should leave; she should quit or he should quit or they both should just give up and leave this wretched place. They cannot sustain themselves this way. It’s not healthy; it’s not fair. But he needs her to function even minimally, and she needs him to feel like anyone at all.

 

~oOo~

 

At first, there is alcohol, hard and bitter in his throat, and then there is nothing, and then there is the pounding in his head like pipes bursting in his brain. Same thing as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. Every morning, just the same. Nothing is ever new in the world.

Detective Inspector Nobody-Calls-Me-Greg-Anymore-Just-Lestrade gets up, as usual, shaves, showers and brushes his teeth to away the smell of liquor on his body and in his breath, puts on his shirt and jacket, does his best to tie his shoes with shaking fingers, drinks the coffee that makes his hands shake even more, drives to New Scotland Yard and sits in his glass box of an office in the inner recesses of a building that is less a structure for work and more like a mausoleum.

File on his desk. Body in the morgue. He sighs. Nowadays, he hates going to Bart’s, but it’s where he’s needed, so that’s where he goes.

Bart’s seems empty for 9 o’clock on a Wednesday morning, but he’s too hung-over to pay attention to anything but the time ( _three hours until I can take another paracetamol_ ).

He didn’t understand why Molly Hooper is still working at the morgue. He wouldn’t have continued, in her situation, because this is where it all started and where it almost ended for her. But now, almost eleven months since the assault and eight months since her return, he is only just starting to piece together the rationale—it is all for the sake of normalcy.

She is willing to examine bodies just as hers had been examined, stare at corpses when she too had been so near to being one of them, slice them open as she had, intimately separate facts from grisly fiction. She sews the bodies together, and she is sewing herself together as she does so.

Still, he would never have been able to do it. Molly Hooper is a braver person than he.

He knocks on the door quietly and opens it, being sure to call out a weak-willed greeting to the empty-feeling morgue, which smells of formaldehyde and leaves a bad taste in the back of his throat.

“Molly, what do you have for me?” He calls out to the small, thin shape hanging drearily over a broken woman’s body. “What do we have?”

“O-oh, Detective Inspector.” She stumbles over her words. “You got here a bit earlier than I expected.”

“Oh? Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I wasn’t startled.” She says defensively, stepping backward a bit. He smiles, because a few months ago, she could hardly make eye contact with anyone, much less a male in a position of authority.

“Sorry anyway. What do we have here?” He eyes the body. Young woman, pretty enough, looking pale and ethereal on the concrete slab. The shiny metal contrasts with her wan, pasty skin, dull and bloodless. Her lips are blue and her eyes are open, and there’s a ring of purple around her throat, slightly crushed inward around her oesophagus—the cartilage has been broken. He feels slightly queasy while looking between the body and the pathologist, but she looks resolute.

Another body, just like every fucking week. A textbook case of domestic murder, a young woman killed by her lover in a cut-and-dry tragedy that the press will not care about, leaving floating threads of friends and family and acquaintances without resolution or acknowledgement.

Still, though, pity she’s young, so pretty, and so very, very dead. Poor bird could have been helped; received shelter for battered women, and the way that Molly looks at her body with such fond sadness makes him want to tear his hair out.

It was on this floor that he cradled her body as she hyperventilated, initials carved into her chest, blood flowing from the stab wound Moriarty had left her with, since Sally Donovan pressed towels into hole in her chest and she never sobbed. He’s never seen her sob, not even once, and he knows she must have done so in the sanctity and solitude of her own home, but she is not doing so as she stares (no, _observes, reveres_ ) this young woman’s body.

Does she remember the words he rattled off in a desperate attempt to keep her with them? Does she remember all the intimations his words carried then, and still do now? Loneliness, implied. Rage, implied. Hate, implied. All things just beneath the surface, lurking within the seemingly placid, affable inspector with a propensity for using coarse language and getting amiably drunk at the pub with some of his mates.

Does she know how close Lestrade was to punching Sherlock Holmes, or that he would have said anything to get her to keep her eyes open, to keep her breathing?

He keeps thinking that Molly’s three-month medical leave and subsequent leave of absence weren’t nearly long enough, but every time he sees her, he marvels at how strong she appears to be. _I couldn’t do that_ , he knows. _Day after day, pretending everything has gone back to normal just because she left for three months._

It has been a nearly year since John died, six months since Sherlock killed himself, and just a matter of time until they all die along with them.

Mrs Hudson is withering but alive, and Lestrade often accompanies her out to Sussex if he’s not on a case and she’s taking the train the same weekend as he is. Molly never comes with _him_ , but he knows that Mrs Hudson has accompanied her several times. He knows Molly still feels guilty for everything that she can’t say to anyone’s face but her own in the mirror, and to the stone slab marking their resting places—for missing John’s funeral because she was too wracked with emotional grief to even leave the recuperation centre Mycroft had placed her in with a small, restrained and somewhat wayward _“to your good health, Doctor”_ thrown towards her. For knowing that the very last words John Watson had resignedly told her, as his lungs filled with blood and fluids, just before they drowned him, were _“it’s not your fault, Molly Hooper,”_ and she could only ask him why in God’s name this was happening, why, why, _why_ wouldn’t it just fucking stop, why couldn’t Jim fucking Moriarty just let them in peace for once? She made their last meeting about fear, and pain and Jim Moriarty, and not about John, or that fact that she loved him, and Sherlock, and so many things before Moriarty’s final breach of her skin and trust and body and mind, but now she couldn’t bring herself to love anything at all, much less a dying man with so much potential, so much caring and generosity in his heart, so much forgiveness, blinking out distantly, cold and alone.

Mycroft hasn’t been seen by anyone but his bizarre assistant and his perpetually terrified underlings at Whitehall—Lestrade knows, he made it his personal business to ensure the Holmes’ safety, and now that Sherlock’s failed him, Mycroft is all he has left. He spoke with the man’s driver, who informed the detective inspector that his employer rarely leaves the office; his shadow, or whatever position Currently-Persephone holds, never gives Lestrade the time of day, much less any information whatsoever; his not-really-a-secretary always claims that “ _Mr Holmes is in the office, but he’s rather busy, and may I take a message?_ ” He even popped round to the Kensington townhouse that Lestrade was surprised to learn he lives in (or perhaps, doesn’t live in, just uses as a front for curious policemen and anyone who has the gall to search him in the official databases. Even shadowy government officials require a place of refuge, and it appears that the Kensington home is not one for Mycroft Holmes.)

The two have not spoken for five months and two weeks. Lestrade has been keeping track, even during his more blindingly intoxicated evenings. They did not have a history between them, _per se_ , but rather a series of strangely assertive conversations regarding Sherlock (and sometime’s John’s) well being. It seemed that Mycroft Holmes had very few interests other than the management of the British government and the obsessive monitoring of his brother, and by extension, Dr Watson. In contrast, Greg Lestrade had a great many interests who were rather quickly divorced from him around the same time his wife did, and since then, has devoted himself entirely to homicide, football and the occasional consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. As of late, the latter hobby has taken a rather prominent position in his non-shift evenings and weekends.

They should not have had any reason to interact after Sherlock’s suicide, and, in fairness, their last meeting was purely coincidental. Both would agree that it was a classic situation of right place, wrong time, rather than any desire to see the other. Lestrade was sympathetic for the man’s considerable losses, but still was furious over the supposed genius’s blunders. This anger was mostly an outlet for Lestrade’s personal errors, his guilt and grief directed at one stone-faced individual, who now, in hindsight, seemed to be grieving, in his own inexplicable way.

Looking back on it, as he stands smoking outside Bart’s, pointedly trying not to look ‘round the corner, near the ambulance dock and therefore where Sherlock had died the first time, Lestrade has no idea what actually happened last time he and Mycroft met.

221B, by then lacking all its grace, vitality and musty charm, needed to be cleaned out. It was not a difficult task, as Sherlock had barely bothered to unpack, hardly lived (in Baker Street/at all) since John’s death, and upon his suicide, the boxes, by and large, remained closed. Just a few personal effects and memorabilia, case files and experiments and science equipment. It was not a difficult task, no. But it was a thankless task, and not one Lestrade was willing to force on Mrs Hudson. Scotland Yard held very little interest for him at the time, and the Chief Superintendent actually offered him paid leave for a few weeks ( _“to get yourself set straight, Greg”_ , and he shudders to think at the chills that ran down his spine to hear his first name used by a superior, or even, at all.) At the time following Sherlock’s passing, the Yard held too many remembrances and too few comforts. He’s not ashamed to admit that he spent the night, completely drunk and alone, sleeping in the same cell in which he had let a younger and severely coked-up Sherlock Holmes sober up several years ago.

It’s in 221B that he encounters Mycroft Holmes, who enters with a diminished sense of sad supremacy. He does not look surprised to see Lestrade fiddling with some science equipment haphazardly, seeming more frustrated than confused (though, in actuality, he was probably equal parts both).

“Detective Inspector Lestrade,” he said, in an almost-question. Lestrade spun around, and of course. Of course Mycroft Holmes would be able to see every last line, every broken capillary in his eyes, the scruff under his chin that he hadn’t be able to catch and hadn’t been able to care much about at all, the stains on his grungy t-shirt. And in contrast, the inspector was unable to see anything at all that would indicate that the government worker was faring poorly in his brother’s wake.

“You can call me Greg, you know.” He said wearily. “’S my name. Nobody calls me it, but that’s what it is.”

The other man did not reply for a seemingly long moment, but eventually: “No, thank you.” At Lestrade’s bemused expression, he added. “My brother, in his own way, held great respect for you, and I feel that referring you by your title confers a fraction of that selfsame respect that he transferred on to me.”

“Christ, Mr Holmes, why would you respect me?” Lestrade was bitter, not to mention hung-over, which he planned to rectify by getting fantastically drunk that night, same as the night before. “It was Sherlock that was brilliant.”

“Sherlock was…” He waved his hand. He’d never seen a Holmes at a loss for words, but it seemed appropriate then.

“Unique?” He suggested.

Mycroft shrugged his shoulders. “That somehow both describes him perfectly and not at all.”

“Well, not all of us can be geniuses.”

“No.” The other man said, almost sadly, Lestrade would say, if emotions were not so completely suppressed. “I suppose some of us, even less than others.”

Lestrade settled back into the worn sofa with a tired huff. Holmes uncomfortably takes the chair ( _John’s chair_ ) across the room, but still angles himself to face the other.

“So what are you doing here, Mr Holmes? Mrs Hudson’s not here. She’s down in Sussex.”

Mycroft’s lips press into a thin line in a failed effort to conceal any emotion. “Of course. I was here to offer her any assistance with my brother’s personal effects, but I see that you’ve taken it upon yourself to do so. Your help is greatly appreciated. I’m sure she’s very grateful.”

“I didn’t do it for her, or for you, for that matter.” Lestrade said, not in an effort to be snappish or even discourteous, but simply as a matter of fact. “I need to be useful, and I am useful here.”

“You didn’t decide to clean out a dead man’s flat because you were bored, Detective Inspector.” Mycroft quirks an eyebrow. “But I suppose it’s not my business to inquire regarding personal motivations. To each his own, as they say.”

“I’m almost done here. Most of it…didn’t need to be cleaned or packed up, exactly, just organized. So it can be shipped out. Boxes were here already, after all.”

“He apparently did not see much of a point in unpacking after.” Full stop, no explanation necessary.

Silence rests heavily upon the tension in the room, weaving its way between the stacks of boxes. “Fancy a drink?” Lestrade asked suddenly, simply because he was thirsty and lonely and tired of drinking alone in his local night after night. He figured a night away might stop the bartender thinking he was slowly becoming an alcoholic, which he most definitely wasn’t, but he just needed to take the edge off now and then, and he was tired of smelling death and musty carpet and the lingering scent of blood and gunpowder that resulted from the flat being locked and the windows closed for the past two weeks. He wasn’t sure Mrs Hudson had been even able to climb up the seventeen steps, much less open the doors and windows.

“I do not often…partake at pubs, Detective Inspector.”

“Well, I don’t often clean a dead friend’s flat out, so I guess it’s an unusual day for us both.”

Another time his lips are pressed into a thin line, and Lestrade still doesn’t know what to make out of the minute expression. “I suppose a drink would be acceptable.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll pay, then. I don’t guess you can give a review of the local ‘round here?”

Twenty-five minutes later, they were seated at a tall table looking distinctly out of place in the mostly-empty pub, nursing a whisky and some sort of dark drink with ice.

Two hours later, they were stumbling out the door, after taking in a grand total of thirteen drinks between them. Lestrade (whom Mycroft was still calling Detective Inspector, even whilst inebriated) left to smoke, Mycroft (whom Lestrade was still calling Mr Holmes, out of some sort of deep-seated anxiety towards the man) simply followed. Though Mycroft had noticeably shed some weight after John’s death, and even more noticeably, in the short weeks since Sherlock’s, he still had about half a stone on Lestrade. In spite of the weight gain, the man had the alcoholic tolerance of a guinea pig, but all the form of the Queen herself, regardless of his drunken state.

Lestrade drew a long drag from the cigarette, blew the smoke up and watched it dissipate. He knew Mycroft was watching him, and pulls out another, offering one to him.

“Thank you, but I don’t smoke.” He insisted.

“You also don’t drink, you said.” Lestrade quirked an eyebrow.

“I don’t drink _often_ , and certainly not in public houses.”

“Well, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to take it.” He began to withdraw his hand, but Mycroft took it. Lestrade lit it, and there they were, two veritable strangers ( _well, no. There are no strangers to a Holmes._ Lestrade knew his secrets, every tick and twitch and turn was laid bare then and there, in the open, and he could not bring himself to care much at all.)

Lestrade could feel the alcohol working its way through his blood and loosening his jaw, the tension slipping from his limbs, so he takes a puff and asks, “Why don’t you go out to Sussex with me? I’m going next weekend and it would be nice to have some company. Sometimes I go with Mrs Hudson, but she wanted to go this weekend and I—”

“Preferred to get drunk on a Thursday night?”

Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. “Seemed like a thing to do. The only thing, really.”

“Thank you for your offer, but I must decline. I’ve no interest in visiting Sh—them.”

Lestrade coughs back smoke. “But he’s your brother.”

“Yes, and Sussex is just a place, and a place is always and _only_ a place, with no greater value than the decomposing bones buried beneath it, and a body is just a body, and I’d prefer not to think of him as ash buried in the ground and spread about an another family’s homestead.”

“Do you wish he’d been buried somewhere else?”

“I suppose. But then, there’s nowhere else he should have been. What’s done is done. He was dead and buried long before he shot himself, Detective Inspector. I’m surprised, be as it may, that he lasted as long as he did.” He ran a hand over his face, and for a split second, Lestrade saw the façade so carefully constructed crumble into a deceitful face of hope and despair, and even more pitifully, try to reconstruct itself in only a few moments.

“Lord, I am not worthy,” Lestrade muttered, and fuelled by alcohol, crushed the half-out fag beneath his shoe, and kissed him. Between that stunned silence and the response, Lestrade thought, _“pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death”_ because he was tired of seeing men die before they could atone for what they’d done. He knew what it was like to toss and turn and tear at empty and cold sheets night after night, and he was drunk and lonely, and he is now, as he looks back on it.

If he were still a praying man, he would pray for forgiveness, and to forget, because this life is it, and it is not a life at all.

He can’t remember how long they kissed in front of that pub, but he vaguely recalled being corralled into a sleek black car, and looking sleepily at Mycroft goddamn Holmes on the edge of breaking apart, whispering _“It is a weakness; it is a defect; it is not an advantage”_ over and over again, and then staggering up the stairs to his flat with a stronger, straighter arm around his waist and his arm around the other’s shoulders, and being unceremoniously dumped in his bed, but when he woke up, his shoes and belt were off and there was a glass of water and some paracetamol by the bed stand.

 

~oOo~

 

It is not his fault, she knows, and yet she still can’t stop sobbing behind the locked door. It is not his fault, it is not his fault, he didn’t _think_ , he didn’t _know_ , and it isn’t fair, and he’s begging her to open the door so he can apologise to her face for something that is _not his fault_ , so why must he apologise at all?

The kettle whistles in the kitchen. Toby lets out a startled cry, as he always does, and settles back into an indifferent state, lingering somewhere between outright hatred and simple apathy.

Hugh is still standing at the door.

_“Molls, please, just open the door. You know it was—I didn’t…I don’t know…Just tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how I can help. I want to help.”_

“F-fine. It’s fine, please. Just…” She can’t finish the sentence, and instead heaves into the toilet bowl in front of her, leaving her shaking and weak once more.

_“Oh Christ, Molls…I’m coming in, please—just unlock the door. You’re sick, you need some help. I’ll get you some water and we can talk about this. D’you need to see a doctor? Hold on, I’ll be right there.”_

The feeling of his hand ghosting the top of her knickers, completely unexpected, with another wrapped possessively _(no, not possessively, affectionately, goddammit, goddammit,_ affectionately _)_ around her shoulders as she stood with her back turned to him at worktop. He had kissed her on the neck, right below the jawbone, just where she recalled a knife once being placed, and she dropped the teacup, which promptly shattered on the floor, and the noise made her scream, and he backed away with all the clumsiness of a six foot one accountant. Her mind darted into the scenarios some common in her own late-night fears, within and around her body, memories of Jim Moriarty with his thin arms around her, of Sherlock Holmes with his large hands empty and the gun next to his head and his eyes open, of Jim again with the scalpel dragging along her collarbones and stripping her on the cold tile of the morgue floor, of her skirt being pushed up and her tights inched down, and all the while, he whispered into her ear as blood stained his bespoke suit, telling her things of nightmares, and those _arms_ , there are arms around her now, restraining her, choking her, and she’s dying, she’s bleeding on the floor and she’s _dying_ , initials on her skin permanently and indelibly marking her as Jim Moriarty’s territory, he’ll come for her again and again, every night, and she’s dying, dying, _dying_ , and she knows, rationally that Hugh cares for her, maybe possibly perhaps even loves her, but the thudding of the blood in her ears and the rasp of air as it scrapes out of her lungs overpowers the sound of the small, tinny voice in the back of her head, telling her to calm down—

She bolted to the loo, toppling Toby off his perch on the sofa in her mad dash, falling on her knees in front of the bowl and vomiting violently amidst tears and sweat and the taste of bile and the sound of her heart pounding, her arms in front of her, with all the sanctity and repose of a woman who has suffered more than she can explain with just her words.

The lock snaps a bit. Hugh opens the door, looking equally sheepish and fearful. “S-sorry, I’ll pay for that to get fixed. My God, Molls, oh my God.” He’s panicking a bit, and grabs a glass of water from near the sink and shoves it in her hands, and flattens himself against a corner, watching her as though she’s a frightened, trapped animal.

“D-do you feel better yet? Are you ill?”

She can’t speak, so she just shakes her head.

“No, you don’t feel better, or no, you’re not ill?” He asks hurriedly. “Because I can run down to the chemist’s, if you want, and don’t worry about the teacup, I cleaned it up, but we might have to Hoover to make sure that no little pieces fell between the tiles or under the countertop, but I can do that too, it’s okay, it’s fine, I don’t mind.”

She groans and presses her arms over her head and her face on top of her knees, and chokes back another sob.

“It’s—hey, it’s okay. It’s fine. You’re okay.” His voice wobbles, and she knows that his face would be worried, his eyebrows creased in that funny way that makes his eyes look smaller than they actually are. She looks up warily. Hanging in the miles of space between them, his hand is achingly stretching out, maybe to touch her, or so that she might take it, or maybe just to take the glass from beside her bare foot, but she just stares at it. It’s probably not moving as slowly as it appears to be, but it takes years for it to get closer. When she jumps back a bit, he mirrors it, flushing and looking frightened, ready for another panic attack.

“Please…” She whispers. “Please…”

“What do you want? What do you need? How can I help you?” He asks plaintively, moving past asking and closer to begging.

She presses her head into his hand, and they’re both shaking, but he hesitantly puts his arms on her shoulders again and lets her lean back into him. She immediately curls up around herself, and when his hands drift to wrap around her, she nods into her chest with a tiny whimper.

“What’s happened, Molls? Y-you don’t have to tell me, of course. But I want…I want to help you, if I can. But I don’t know what to do. You need to tell me so I can help you.”

“You won’t want to.” She responds quietly.

“What did you say?”

A little louder this time. “You won’t want to help me. You’ll leave. It’s okay. I don’t mind. If you leave. I don’t blame you.”

“Why would I leave?”

“Because you’ll be angry, or upset, or scared, or overwhelmed. I don’t know. You just won’t want to stay.”

“I-I think I’d like to decide that for myself, maybe?” He tries his hand at being determined, and in any other situation, she would have giggled. He was so daft, sometimes.

They had met entirely by accident and entirely humiliatingly near a coffee shop his flat and on her way to Bart’s. She, clumsy person that she is, knocked into him on her rush, forcing him to drop sheaths of paper and files containing painstaking calculations, and knocking the contents of her bag to the sidewalk. She came out the better, though, seeing as her shoulder had collided with his eye, leaving it slowly reddening.

It was just over four months ago, and, of course, the swollen eye did turn black and blue, but she managed to procure some ice from the coffee shop barista, and they sat in the tiny café trying to sort out their possessions and ensuring their impact had incurred only minimal damage.

It is only later that she realises that she had not panicked in anyway, even though every previous physical encounter with a man had left her gasping for air.

He sees her on her commute two weeks later, and asks her for “proper coffee”, and in spite of her initial apprehension, she agreed. She did not mention Jim, or Sherlock, and instead spoke about television, and music, and all the things that proper women are supposed to talk about on a first-date, and when they bring up the topic of jobs, she bashfully admits that she “works with dead bodies in a morgue”, and he seems genuinely interested (which, in fairness, is more than she can say about accounting, as passionate as he is about it).

Hugh is painfully awkward, and she is simply in pain. They make an odd match, but now, as she fits herself between his gangly arms and curls her own around her knees, she listens to his heartbeat as hers slows down to match.

She isn’t sure when she falls asleep, but Hugh gently shakes her awake after a time.

“Molls, come on, let’s get you to bed. You’ve had a fright.” He pulls her up and she wobbles to the bed, and she considers her options.

She has not told Hugh everything, or anything, really. Would that be considered lying?

Here, at magic hour, there is so much at risk—such a happy cycle of repeated denial and fear, suspicion and apathy, and the wind through the open window blares of car horns and shakes the branches of the yew outside, and out from between the leaves fall her secrets bare.

She scoots over, lets him choose to lie down beside her and once again wrap himself around her like a clam, and for a moment, she is afraid, but then, she settles and feels safe—safety she has not felt for almost a year ( _a year, a year, almost, since Jim Moriarty tore her apart like a wolf tears a rabbit_ ).

“I have to tell you something,” she whispers into his shirt. “Please listen, because I’m afraid.”

The shirt is only a shirt, and does not respond. For a moment, she hopes that the silence will give her a way out, proof that she should change her mind and retreat once more. But instead, a voice replies into her hair, “What are you afraid of, Molls?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the whimpering, the whimpering is back and his arms tighten. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything, duck. I can go back to my flat, and you can tell me when you feel like you can.” He begins to extricate himself from her and she pulls him back.

“No. _Please_. Please, you’re safe.”

“O-okay, Molls. I’m right here.” He sighs and returns to where he had been. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

_Yes, you are,_ her subconscious responds wearily. _The men in my life, they always leave. They always hurt you, and they always leave._

 Instead of the bitter thoughts her mind supplies her with, she says, “What do you know about Sherlock Holmes?”

 

She drinks tea and watches him sleep, doesn’t rest her head on the now-damp pillow, and instead perches far and away on the daybed across the room. He had held her, he had cried but he had stayed. He blurted out that he loves her, but she knows what desperate love looks like, and it does not look like that—face aglow, eyes red and puffy, cheeks pale and wan.

So if love is not desperate, then what is it?

Violent. Messy. Destructive.

Deadly.

She knows he will leave in the morning to go to work, and she will go to the morgue again and smell formaldehyde and stale blood, watch men, women and children weep over their loved ones—

_Deadly_.

Yes, love is most certainly deadly, but is it something more?

She looks at Hugh, painfully awkward, kind, sensitive, intelligent, nothing-like-Sherlock, nothing-like-Jim, Hugh, and can’t decide.

He should leave. He should leave for work tomorrow and never come back here, never call her, he should _hate_ her but then, at least, he could have the chance of being a whole person, being _with_ a whole person, unbroken, and live happily, without nightmares and panic attacks and—

He should leave, and she wants him to leave so he can be happy, because someone in this wretched world deserves to be happy.

She crawls into bed next to him, her stomach warm from tea but the rest of her body, cold, cold, so very cold. He cracks open an eye and pulls her close to him, falls back asleep very quickly. The cold is dissipating from her limbs into the ether, and for a moment, with just quiet breaths, she feels safe.

He should leave, and she wants him to leave so he can be happy, but just not now.

 

~oOo~

 

He stands beneath a juniper tree in a park on his way to the Tube station, itching for another fag, and wonders if there is a God, like the God he renounced years and years ago, or if perhaps He is not the same God as the one he had revered in his youth, because now he has no one to pray to for his sins, merely oblivion, and is it because of what Lestrade did that night over five months ago that caused Mycroft Holmes to throw himself into his work, age himself by decades in days, devoted to the gathering of intelligence and knowledge filed within paper sheaths, concentrated in purpose without clear intent?

It is one torment of love unsatisfied, but a greater torment of love satisfied and rejected.

Sherlock and John had torment and suffering in their mortal lives, but now, they have inherited the earth and the land that encases them, and perhaps that is not more peaceful? Perhaps that is not better? They forget themselves and each other, but only have themselves and each other and the dirt around their white and scattered bones, now ash—

He feels sick. Perhaps he should beg off for the rest of the day, citing flu or mental anguish or lovesickness or nicotine poisoning or botulism or a premature diagnosis of death.

Instead, he gets on the Tube, and ignores the CCTV cameras following his steps as he heads down the first stairs, ignores the arguing couple on his right and the young pseudo-intellectuals on his left, spouting ignorance and knowledge and the eternal dolour of their wretched lives, and he stands in the train car, a heady mix of colours, grey and splashes of red and between shades of violet and various ranks of varied green, still feeling the nausea down to his toes.

_Lord, I am not worthy. Lord, I am not worthy, but I speak the word only._

He lies to his colleagues that night, when they ask him out to the local near Scotland Yard for the weekly get-together, Sally Donovan’s drawn face begging him between eager constables and tired detectives ready to drown their troubles with good company. He lies and says that he is busy, and he goes to his pub to drink alone, leaving the bartender to his thoughts and internal criticisms.

The seats next to him are empty, and after this last drink, his exile to his dark and quiet flat to suffer alone, like everyone else, grieving with lost words, unspoken and unheard.

 

~oOo~

 

Four corpses, three men, three women and one city, burning silently and invisibly to the ground beneath the living’s feet and above the dead’s silently singing bones.

The first corpse, Sebastian Moran, a man born of gentlemanly violence, of murder and prose, a dead man walking in love with constellations and a man who thought he was the God of Death—

The second corpse, James Moriarty, who was in love with death and himself and the _challenge_ , who wanted to build a kingdom that he could destroy on a whim, with such fiery aplomb that he could wipe it off the face of the earth with barely a scorch mark. He wanted to scar the planet without leaving any trace of himself.

The third corpse, John Hamish Watson, M.D., a modern day archangel Raphael, a healer and a protector and a soldier (not of God, but for the sake of another man who believed that the only higher power in existence was himself), who died far from the battlefields that sustained him, but in a hospital, unable to save himself or the people he loved (a woman he promised himself to, and a best friend whom he lied to but also laid next to).

The fourth corpse, one Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, one-time junkie, _only one in the world_ , who lost everything and anything that had ever mattered to him in the flat, long sound of a heart monitor recording nothing. DNR orders etched themselves into his brilliant brain and in his cold, unused, dusty heart, and six months after his world could not be resuscitated, he decided to break apart everything that mattered to him with the piercing of a bullet through the cobwebs and cavernous halls of his heart, shattering it apart and bursting through like Semtex and sucking in everything, hopes, dreams, love and potentiality as he implodes like a black hole in the depths of the cosmos—anything, everything, all things—disappear in the blink of an eye, the firing of a gun.

And then there are the living survivors— _survivors_ , they say, as though it were simply an accident, or a terrorist attack, an attack on lives and normalcy and the precarious balance between love and friendship, between fate and free will, between fear and devotion, the shadow between everything that matters in the world and all that could be left behind.

Mrs Martha Hudson, dying slowly, wasting away, without the support of her two not-quite sons, who could not support themselves without her. In a few years, she will be on her deathbed, thinking about everything she could have changed and the many things she could never have altered, that which was set in stone.

Persephone, a name she decided for herself, an identity forged from nothing and glass, watching as the only man who had ever mattered, who had ever cared for her, a man who had saved her, watches as he dies slowly the same way his little brother had.

Molly Hooper, pathologist who works with the dead with more caring than had ever been reserved for her, perhaps the most broken out of all of them, hollow and terrified in a way that words cannot describe, trying to fill up the emptiness within her with bitterness and silence.

Hugh, Just Hugh, a man who collided into this mess long after it happened, impacting with Dr Hooper entirely by accident, thrust into a world more complicated and heartbreaking than he could ever know, being pushed away by a woman he had just said he loved (but he doesn’t know, could he even know, can she even be loved?)

DI Gregory Lestrade, who lost his name the same day he lost Dr Watson (because that was the same day he lost Sherlock Holmes), and before that, lost his family. Not a husband, not a father, not anyone at all, just a sad, hungover, grey-haired man who solved murders and deaths and ignored his iimpending own death, a suicide by drowning that was slow and bitter with the taste of alcohol, and he can be saved, just like they all could have been, but he doesn’t know if anyone will care enough to reach out for him, because who would want a broken old copper who drinks to stay alive and drinks to forget that which is slowly killing him?

And Mycroft Holmes, the paragon of icy genius, a giant, a colossus, a paramount figure looming larger than life and yet, he is shrinking, receding into himself with every declined cup of tea or ignored plate of food, who prefers the shadows of his Whitehall office to observe and report on the man who kissed him five months ago, the man he’s watching die slowly but will not reach out to, who is oblivious to his assistant’s silent supplications for him to _live_ , but—

These are the ramifications of the tremor that rocked through the City of London under its overcast gloom and its history. They become notches in the ancient stones of its buildings, just small people who seemed larger than life at one point, but now, float along alone like aimless boats on the River Thames.

Here are the tragedies that trap the actors in a perpetual downward spiral. The explosion centred around Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes, and the initial blast decimated Sebastian Moran and Dr Watson, devotees to men who played at being godlike, but the outward blast smashed apart others with shrapnel, juggernauting and ricocheting through bodies and flesh and minds with pinpoint precision.

Each man, woman and corpse is alone, and dies alone, and rests, in the ground, alone, even though they could be so close—so much potential, so much life within the bones now trapped under a suffocating layer of dirt and ash—

The bees are buzzing in the juniper tree above the final resting place of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. On the trunk of the tree, overlooking the headstones and the flowers left by strangers and family and friends alike, there is a sign of unknown origins. It is not a fancy sign, nor is it particularly pretty, but its appearance was sudden, and despite John and Sherlock’s make-shift family’s best attempts to investigate its origin, it has come to naught.

They considered removing it, but thought better of it. In simple lines and simple letters, it reads:

_“These are two friends whose lives were undivided:_

_So let their memory be, now they have glided_

_Under the grave; let not their bones be parted,_

_For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.”_

For some time now, tourists and well-wishers have made their way to the Watson homestead to pay their respects for the eccentric detective and his steadfast soldier. They leave flowers or mementos—one acquaintance of John’s brought an old bullet casing, a young woman whose case had been solved by the two of them brought a hand-written letter, a school mate from nearby brought an old photo of John’s rugby team—little remembrances that spread around the tree, but left the two spaces around the headstone intact.

In life, Sherlock Holmes was “Freak”, and in death, he is a hero.

In life, John Watson was an invisible relic of a younger man, and in death, he is a martyr.

It is late afternoon now, peaceful, a lulling hum of activity above the tranquil, stagnant silence of calamity below the tree’s branches.

And in that selfsame silence, there are two headstones, laying flat in the grasses above buried ashes, one elegant and black, the other white and plain:

_And believe me to be_

_Very sincerely yours,_

**_Sherlock Holmes_ **

**_Captain John Watson, M.D._ **

_5 th Northumberland Fusiliers_

_Doctor, soldier, brother, and friend of Sherlock Holmes_

_Primum non nocere_

 

 

             

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! (For the full series, not for the extra bits set in the same universe, such as a possible extrapolation for the Mystrade idea, and the "Poe-logues" that I've been writing, of which only Lestrade's has been finished at the time of publication, although Moriarty's is very close to being completed and Mycroft's is being outlined as we speak.)
> 
> Thank you so much for dealing with me and being so patient. This has been a rather cathartic experience. I know there's a lot of angst, but I've had this in my head for almost 5 months now, so to have it finished is a brilliant experience. I know the epilogue was long-coming, but at least it's here. And I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon. Maybe at some point, I'll figure out how to right something happy and fluffy and not at all depressing, but probably not. I'll work on that bit. (I'M ACTUALLY FUNNY SOMETIMES I SWEAR)
> 
> As for literary citations, I think I've got it all, but some of the more obscure references were harder to note whilst writing. So if you catch anything, shoot me a message and I'll update the reference list here. I'm not as brilliant a writer as some of these other fine gentlemen, unfortunately, but I'd like to give credit where credit is due. Thank you again! 
> 
> Primum non nocere means "First, do no harm", which seemed appropriate in connection with John's healing of Sherlock. Even in his violence, it was always in protection and for "the greater good".   
> The quote on the sign is from Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, "Epitaph", who more famously wrote the poem "Ozymandias".   
> Quotes from Ash Wednesday:   
> _"the dream-crossed twilight between birth and dying"  
>  "[he, meaning Mycroft, but the actual quote is:] I do not wish to wish these things"  
> "Lord I am not worthy, Lord I am not worthy, Lord I am not worthy but I speak the word only"  
> "A place is always and only a place"  
> References to juniper trees, scattered bones "singing"  
> "pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death"  
> references to torment of love unsatisfied, but a greater torment of love satisfied (the bit about rejection is an addendum)  
> "they have inherited the earth"  
> "ignorance, knowledge and the eternal dolour"  
> "between shades of violent", "ranks of varied green" _


	11. A Brief Interlude: Examining T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" as it pertains to this goddamn fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now, for a brief intermission. /cue music
> 
> This is a literary analysis essay (informal, of course, because I'm lazy and don't have time to cite exactly. I will include the text to the poem as well as my analysis towards the poem as it relates to the fic and why I chose to write it the way I did.
> 
> I wrote nothing without reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. Hey. Have you read the fic? No? Then turn back, for here there be spoilers. 
> 
> This is an interlude that describes what has happened in the fic as of Chapter 9, "The hope only of empty men". If you have not read this far, then I would suggest reading that beforehand. This is mainly my explanation for why I wrote the way I did. 
> 
> The Epilogue is to follow at some indefinite time in the future.
> 
>  
> 
> **EDIT: i just sperained a few fingers trying to shut a fucking window so the time i was going to spend writing/editqning the epiloguse may provde to be uselses**  
>  do u guys know how many woeresd are written with the letteers w, e, r, s, a, d, x, c ansd z? the answesre is a lot. i don'ete have the paetince to type like martin freeman or edites every wored i write. updates eto follow provided fingers heal correctly. help. 

**The Poem Text**

_The Hollow Men,_ byT.S. Eliot (1925)

_Mistah Kurtz—he dead._

 

      _A penny for the Old Guy_

 

      **I**

 

We are the hollow men

We are the stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

 

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

 

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As the hollow men

The stuffed men.

 

      **II**

 

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

In death’s dream kingdom

These do not appear:

There, the eyes are

Sunlight on a broken column

There, is a tree swinging

And voices are

In the wind’s singing

More distant and more solemn

Than a fading star.

 

Let me be no nearer

In death’s dream kingdom

Let me also wear

Such deliberate disguises

Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves

In a field

Behaving as the wind behaves

No nearer—

 

Not that final meeting

In the twilight kingdom

 

      **III**

 

This is the dead land

This is cactus land

Here the stone images

Are raised, here they receive

The supplication of a dead man’s hand

Under the twinkle of a fading star.

 

Is it like this

In death’s other kingdom

Waking alone

At the hour when we are

Trembling with tenderness

Lips that would kiss

Form prayers to broken stone.

 

      **IV**

 

The eyes are not here

There are no eyes here

In this valley of dying stars

In this hollow valley

This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

 

In this last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

 

Sightless, unless

The eyes reappear

As the perpetual star

Multifoliate rose

Of death’s twilight kingdom

The hope only

Of empty men.

 

      **V**

 

_Here we go round the prickly pear_

_Prickly pear prickly pear_

_Here we go round the prickly pear_

_At five o’clock in the morning._

 

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow

_For Thine is the Kingdom_

 

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the Shadow __

____ _Life is very long_

 

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the Shadow

 ___For Thine is the Kingdom_

 

For Thine is

Life is

For Thine is the

 

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_This is the way the world ends_

_Not with a bang but a whimper_

 

 

**An Informal Analysis as it Pertains to the Fic**

by Not Actually T.S. Eliot Because He is Dead, but the Author, at 1:31 A.M.

 

Okay. Okay. I know you guys are like _what the fuck why why **why** would you do something like that oh god _ but, let's do some literary analysis, shall we?,

 

"The Hollow Men" alludes to Joseph Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ , (" _Mistah Kurtz, he dead_ ") and Guy Fawkes (" _A penny for the Old Guy_ "), both monstrous figures in literature/history who attempted in a megalomaniacal fanaticism to destroy. They are allegories for Moriarty in this story. Even though neither of them wholly succeeded, they both managed to destroy some parts of the society—in _HOD_ , Kurtz affects Marlowe so drastically, it almost kills him (hence, why John is felled by illness rather than violence). Guy Fawkes destroyed the English sense of safety within their borders at peace.

 

There are repetitive remarks in the poem to "eyes" (not being there—literally blind, metaphorically the soul/heart/emotion/humanity: John first, then Sherlock). Repeated references to fading stars. The "fading" became an inevitability. Sebastian is obsessed with stars, and he, being the most literary and the "moral narrator" of the story, dies first.

 

 _ **"Headpiece filled with straw"** Line 4_ : Reference to Sherlock/Moriarty/Mycroft _and_ Lestrade, Sebastian, Molly and John. Of the former, all of them are so intelligent and yet, none of them are truly happy with it. Straw is flammable, fragile—their knowledge is copious, but flimsy in nature. It does not build a foundation. Whereas the latter group does not have the intelligence (their straw is more literal than figurative, like saying someone's head is filled with "fluff") of the former, per se, they _do_ have the emotional baggage filling their memories.

 

 **hollow versus stuffed** : Whereas I portray Sebastian as devoid of free will and Moriarty as devoid of sanity, I portray Sherlock as _stuffed_ with knowledge and undefinable emotion, literally flowing from him uncontrollably at times. Then there's John, who is simultaneously hollow (i.e. wracked by death and anger) and full (of pain and grief).

 

One of the themes of " _The Hollow Men_ " is a recurring sense of failure. Relentless quest, the search for _something_ (i.e. immortality, Heaven, God, religion, happiness, etc.), and the inevitable failure. Moriarty seeks a resolution to his madness. Moran seeks to have Moriarty last indefinitely. Sherlock seeks to have a happiness that he had come so close to prior to his Fall. John seeks solace. Mycroft seeks to protect and serve. Lestrade seeks to retain a family that he's lost (that's part of his accompanying story, the first of the so-called "Poe-logues). The quest goes along throughout this story. It was always doomed to fail. John was never going to get solace, and his death was nearly inevitable, as were Moran's and Moriarty's. When Sherlock is deprived of his potential happiness, he dies too. Mycroft can continue to protect, but not in the same capacity. Lestrade has lost some family, but also gained a bit from Sally Donovan and Molly Hooper, both of whom he cares about and is willing to protect.

 

 _ **"Those who have crossed with direct eyes, to Death's other kingdom"**_ : There are others who stumble along towards death directly. This path was riddled with obstacles, but it was always going to be death as the fic. _"Let me be no nearer"_ , which indicates a reluctance to go towards _"Death's dream kingdom"_ , but regardless of reluctance, it was always going to end that way. That was always the destination. In fact, the first words I wrote of this fic were, in fact, _"Sherlock's world ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Sherlock returns to that world, not with a whimper, but with a bang."_

 

Throughout **Part III** of the poem, there are images of what the " **hollow men** ", the protagonists of the poem, feel in " _Death's other kingdom_ "—it is dry, arid, with only cacti and the dead souls begging and praying to inanimate objects. There is nothing else to love in this land, so they love divine stone. This sort of frustrated love, an unwilling canonization, deification of ordinary objects, that is what prompted me to actually provide a one-way relationship between Sherlock and John, and Moran and Moriarty, respectively. Sherlock creates an angel out of John Watson in his absence, wherein his love for the man has grown to near-religious extents, and Moran is obsessed with immortalizing Moriarty. The only love Moriarty has for Moran is shown by killing him. John returns Sherlock's love by replicating it in his final hours, so that Sherlock might have felt something worthwhile, because John knows the pain of losing something when it is unfinished. Even so, as with the " _cactus land_ " in which the " _hollow men_ " reside, the love supplied here is not nearly enough to support them. It breaks with their lives, like _"broken stone"_ or _"paralysed force"_.

 

 

In **Part IV** of the poem, the hollow men are forced apart from each other. They are desperate, they “ _grope together and avoid speech_ ” in “ _the last of the meeting places_ ” . Grope, both physically _reaching out_ for the others, and also, an undercurrent of sexual innuendo, which is part of the reason that Sherlock, at the end, gives in and kisses John, desperate to make some sort of connection. It is impulse, something Sherlock has repressed, something entirely out of his control, like John’s death. It is also why I based Moriarty's attacks on Molly and (possibly) John on sexual violence, and his subjugation of Moran and obsession with Sherlock to be sexually based in essence.

 

 **Part V** has a childlike nature to it, with nursery rhymes, which is why Moriarty takes on a childish, whimsical nature, or at least, it was the inspiration for that. Even so, the time during which the rhyme occurs, at “ _five o’clock_ ” is important, because it is dawn, symbolizing, possibly, resurrection or renewal. In context of the fic, I interpreted this as a sort of eternal reunion between the lost, hollow, violent souls.

 

As for the discussion on religion in **Chapter 9** , “ _The Hollow Men_ ” is ranked amongst the most blasphemous of all of T.S. Eliot’s poems. In fact, the “ _let me be no nearer, in Death’s other kingdom_ ”, is considered to be a sort of anti-Lord’s Prayer.

 

 

The title of each of the chapters, at least, **1-7** , is a reference to the last stanzas of the poem. ( _“Between the ____ and the _____”_ , with Chapter 8 being “ _Falls the Shadow”_. For example, “ _between the creation/conception_ (fertility, nascent emotion, growth, **synonyms)** , _emotion/response_ ( **similar, but not synonyms** , reactions to stimuli), _idea/reality_ ( **opposites** , both devastating to the characters, because the mind and physicality of the characters are painful and damaging), _essence/descent_ ( **related,** one is the very make-up of the object in question and the other is the deterioration of it), _desire/spasm_ ( **action/reaction, similar,** desire is born out of unconscious want that manifests itself into actions, whereas spasm is involuntary out of reaction), _motion/act_ ( **abstract/physical** ), etc. With every attempt to reconcile differences and become something whole, the _Shadow_ (literally, darkness, fear, absence, death, or, sometimes, Moriarty, figuratively) interferes.

 

It was just never going to work, you guys.

 

So that’s my very informal and basicliterary analysis of the titular poem as it relates to the fic I wrote. Please keep an eye out for the Poe-logues, which are shorter stories in this verse, the Hollow Verse, I guess, and pertain to different characters. The first one is Lestrade’s story. They all relate to different Edgar Allan Poe stories or poems, and _no_ , “The Raven” does not make an appearance. It would be kind of easy, what with Moriarty being a “magpie”, but I thought it would be too easy. I’d like to hear your guesses on which poems go with whom. (Although I’m sure you guys can guess Lestrade’s pretty easily, seeing as the name has already been briefly mentioned).

 

Among those included will be “The City by the Sea”, “For Annie”, “ _The Tell-Tale Heart_ ”, “Tamerlane” and others.

 

Other interesting (or not) points, many based on my personal headcanons:

  * I wrote Sherlock as an autistic savant with Asperger’s. For those of you who recognize the signs, you’ll notice he tends to spin and wrap his arms around him when he’s having his panic attacks. This is a common coping practice with autistics, and is called “stimming”. My brother has mild undiagnosed Asperger’s, which has been labelled as a learning disability and went untreated and unnoticed for years until I started researching the inconsistencies with what doctors thought he had (ADHD and dyslexia—he’s not dyslexic, which is your first clue that there was something problematic with the diagnosis), and found that Asperger’s made much more sense.
  * I gave you guys the options to decide for yourselves about the non-con. In my personal head-canon (I hate calling it that; it makes me sound like a sadist in this case), I would say that Moriarty did rape Molly and possibly John off-stage. I wrote _her_ , definitely, as a victim of rape, and I will write her portion of the epilogue as though she’s going from victim to survivor of sexual violence. Part of her story is based on real life, not my own, but that of a personal friend.
  * Anthea is Greek, I’ve decided. Amelia, Costas, Persephone and Metis are all Greek names. (HC)
  *  Sally has two younger sisters who are twins. One has MS, the other was killed in a drunk driving accident. (HC)
  * Anderson’s name is Richard. He has one daughter and is now divorced. (HC)
  * Lestrade is fully divorced by the time of the Fall. Once the events of this fic have settled down, he finds he can now at least hold a human conversation with her. It isn’t worth hating someone he once loved. (HC)
  * Mycroft is a very lonely man. (HC)
  * So is Greg. (basically canon)
  * Neither of them will ever do anything about it, at least, not towards each other. (Mystrade _is_ pretty cute, though.)
  * I ship multi-ships per character, usually Lestrade. Read this as Mystrade, Molstrade (or whatever you want to call it), Mythea, Donostrade (Salstrade?), whatever. It _really_ doesn’t matter how you ship the minor characters. 
  * If John had not lost Mary and had not died, they would have gotten married and Sherlock would have been left pining for John. (HC)
  * If John had not met Mary before Sherlock came back, he would have been in a relationship with Sherlock. (HC)
  * The AU to the end will cover the unmentioned third option, in case some of you guys have decided to hate me. I don't want you to be sad all the time.



 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have questions? tinibellbeanie.tumblr.com is my Tumblr name, and I will be happy to answer any questions you might have. No anon hate, por favor. If you're going to be angry with me, at least have the courtesy to do so to my digital face.


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